02/10/2019
AKera's Biography
UGANDA: Akera Anania Kerwegi (September 22, 1914 - August 16, 2019) was a regional prince, celebrated teacher, politician and leading Ugandan farmer, at one point reputedly supplying 30% of to***co in the country. He was thought to be one of the richest indigenous Ugandans at independence in 1962.
He was a friend of Tanzania’s founding leader Julius Nyerere at university, and coached him in English.
Nyerere returned the favour by teaching Akera both German and Kiswahili.
He was a controversial politician and a staunch member of Uganda People’s Congress Party (UPC).
He was not only the biggest supplier of to***co in Uganda, providing 30% of the crop to regional markets; he was also a leading dairy farmer in northern Uganda, before the insurgency by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance (LRA) - which lasted from 1987 to 2006 – laid waste to the northern Uganda economy.
Born the eighth child of Rwot Andrea Olal and Yokomoi Ejang of Bobi Paidwe, Puranga Chiefdom, on September 22, 1914, Akera was to amass great wealth as a farmer, and a legacy as a celebrated teacher.
His father was one of the first Acholi to be baptised in 1906, and one of few Ugandans to be knighted Member of the British Empire (MBE).
Joining Busoga College Mwiri from Gulu High School, Akera quickly registered his leadership skills, becoming the defender of bullied students.
He soon rose to serve twice as head prefect in 1939 and again in 1940, becoming the first non-Musoga (the Basoga are people who inhabit the area where Mwiri is located) to hold the office, an unmatched feat at Mwiri then.
On leaving Mwiri, Akera joined Makerere College (1941-1943), to study Education, teaming up with young Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, whom he tutored English.
Nyerere returned the favour by teaching Akera both German and Kiswahili. Nyerere had joined Makerere after Tanganyika was transferred from German East Africa to British East Africa, following defeat of Imperial Germany in World War I.
Akera was instrumental in convincing Nyerere to take up Education, for which Nyerere became famed as mwalimu (teacher), and philosopher. But Akera was to stamp his own mark on Uganda’s education system too.
In 1944, he was tapped by the British colonial government to found a high school in Kitgum, East Acholi, and trained a new crop of students to join secondary school.
Akera later moved to Gulu High School, where he also taught later-to-be preeminent Ugandans, among them twice Ugandan President Dr AM Obote, martyred Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum, former Uganda Development Corporation chairman Semei Nyanzi, and former minister Wilson Lutara.
For his love of boosting primary education, Akera moved on to Buwalasi Teachers Training College in Mbale, to train more teachers.
He drafted a curriculum to promote primary education and it was adopted and used in Uganda and other schools in East Africa. Akera also helped facilitate the first consultation at Mukono for the first syllabus for Teachers Training Colleges TTCs).
Despite his love for education, Akera felt sorely about the poor pay for teachers, and much higher pay for medical doctors, veterinarians and agricultural officers.
While doctors, vets and agric officers were paid Uganda Shs270 monthly at the time, a teacher received only Shs90, three times less.
In 1945, Akera quit teaching and found another love and fortune – farming. By 1949, Akera had bought many tractors and had more than 700 hands on his Lakwatomer farm. Several of the workers were drawn from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan.
So profitable was his farming ventures that his fat bank account, second only to the Roman Catholic Church in northern Uganda, soon attracted suspicion.
The Protectorate Government police instituted an investigation into his source of his fortune! But he soldiered on. Akera came to be considered one of the richest indigenous Ugandans before Uganda’s independence in October 1962.
The final blow to his farming career came in late 1980s when President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA), the forerunner of Uganda People’s Defence Forces, looted his farm, stripping it of cattle, agricultural stock, and machinery.
Akera’s Shs1.5b war debt claims compensation not fulfilled by the government, despite President Museveni promising to have the claims paid off when he attended Akera’s 100th birthday celebration at Bobi Sub-county in Omoro District.
Akera died at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital on August 16, 2019. He was 105.
(Credits: OTIM LUCIMA/Daily Monitor/Kampala, UGANDA)
