On 29th January 2025, the country’s security fraternity was hit by a heavy blow with the news of the passing away of Brigadier General Charles Oluka a career Intelligence officer who was devoted to crushing every threat to the country’s stability during his four years tenure as the head of Uganda’s spy agency the Internal Security Organization-ISO
Oluka, a career intelligence officer known to those close to him as an undercover spy machine, who preferred a no-publicized lifestyle, joined the spy agency in 1987 after the Peter Otai rebels threatened to kill his parents. He later completed his training before going for officer’s course in Monduli-Tanzania, and subsequent trainings from Israel and Russia, Oluka told me in one of the conversations I had with him
Before joining the spy agency, Oluka first worked as a flight Captain and teacher at the Uganda Flying School in Soroti where he served for a long period before his career shift to intelligence. As a trained pilot, Oluka was very instrumental in the aerial combats against the Peter Otai led rebellion against the newly born NRM government in Eastern Uganda
According to one of my conversations with Oluka, “……I was earning a lot of money as a pilot which is today (2024) equivalent to 30 million as my monthly salary. But I was a smart pilot who used to throw bombs and grenades to the Peter Otai rebels who then hatched plans to have me killed. They knew me very well because I was a son of the area … .On one night, I was approached by two men who called me, Oluka, we request to talk to you. There are rebels who want to surrender to the government and we request you to come tomorrow evening and meet them at point X which was just a few metres from Soroti business Center….
….I asked myself how this could happen, and the following day, I went and briefed the District Commissioner by the names of Amooti. Sir, some rebels want to surrender, they requested me to meet them at point X. I narrated the story of the two men who had met with me. Amooti jokingly replied to me, this can’t happen, don’t bother meeting the rebels, they are going to kill you…..
….Indeed, their plan had been that I go to the place they had suggested to me in the dark, and they would have me killed. This was because my grenades and bombs as a pilot were a stumbling block to the Peter Otai rebellion….
….After failing to meet them, they now hatched plans to have my parents killed, such that I could go to Kalaki (my home village) for burial and they could get the chance of slaughtering me, said while drawing for me a map from Soroti to Kalaki. They wrote a note on the doors of my parents that they were going to be killed, unless Oluka agreed to meet them…
……One fateful morning at around 6am, I was still sleeping in my room, to open and check, it was my parents (my mother and my father) who had walked by foot a very long distance from Kalaki to Soroti. I was surprised because nobody in our area would be allowed to move at night because there were several roadblocks mounted by the rebels and anybody who tried to cross in the night was treated as a spy or part of the government forces and would be killed.
….I asked them how and why they made it to walk throughout that night. They told me about how the rebels had written notes threatening to kill them not until they had him, Oluka, meet them. The rebels had given my parents a note on a small piece of paper that would allow them to cross several mounted rebel road blocks until they reached Soroti.
…..I went back to Amooti, the District Commissioner (DC) and told him what had happened. I also asked him whether the system was still recruiting because he had requested to recruit me. He then scheduled me for the next intake which was in that very year. That’s how I joined intelligence, simply because my own people (Itesots) wanted to kill me.”
Oluka was the first career intelligence officer to head the spy agency. The rest of its past head had been military officers with Amaama Mbabazi as a civilian. The agency lost its own child.
On Saturday 8th February, 2024, thousands of mourners, including high-ranking officers from the UPDF, government officials, and local residents gathered at Ousia village to honor the final sendoff of Brigadier Gen Charles Oluka the fallen director Gen of Uganda’s spy agency, ISO
Brigadier Gen Charles Oluka will be remembered for a number of issues among which includes manning threats throughout the 2021 general elections and post-election period, presiding over and rehabilitating the institution’s human rights image that had been torn apart by allegations of torture in safe houses in Lwamayiba and Kyengera, kidnaps and arbitrary arrests, combating ADF and Al-Shabab threats, and by his officers as an effective administrator who did not micro-manage his Directors and junior staff, improving and empowering the welfare of his staff with significant empowerments like vehicles to every district Internal Security Officer among others- May his soul continue resting in peace.
Richard Byamukama is a security studies expert
