Description
Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan politician who led Uganda to independence from British colonial rule in 1962. He served as the second prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and later as the second president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and from 1980 to 1985.
He founded the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) in 1960, which played a key role in securing Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962. He then became the country's prime minister in a coalition with the Kabaka Yekka movement/party, whose leader King (Kabaka) Mutesa II was named president. Due to a rift with Mutesa over the 1964 Ugandan lost counties referendum and later getting implicated in a gold smuggling scandal, Obote overthrew him in 1966 and declared himself president, establishing a dictatorial regime with the UPC as the only official party in 1969. Obote implemented ostensibly socialist policies, under which the country suffered from severe corruption and food shortages.
He was overthrown in a coup d'état by Idi Amin in 1971, settling in exile in Tanzania, but was re-elected in an election reported to be neither free nor fair in 1980 a year after Amin's 1979 overthrow. His second period of rule ended after a long and bloody conflict known as the Ugandan Bush War during which he was overthrown a second time by another coup d'état in 1985 led by Tito Okello, prompting him to live the rest of his life in exile.
