Milton Obote

Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan politician who served as the Prime Minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and the president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and later from 1980 to 1985.

A Lango, Obote studied at the Busoga College and Makerere University. In 1956, he joined the Uganda National Congress (UNC) and later split away by founding the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) in 1960. After Uganda gained independence from British colonial rule in 1962, Obote was sworn in as prime minister in a coalition with the Kabaka Yekka, whose leader 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 sole official party in 1969. As president, Obote implemented ostensibly socialist policies, under which the country suffered from severe corruption and food shortages.

He was overthrown in a military 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.