The ‘Two Sams’: They served same government. Both got cancer. Only one died

This week, we woke up to two news stories about two people named Sam who have served the government in power with distinction.

One is Sam Kahamba Kutesa, a regime insider who successfully combined politics and personal business for decades until he retired from government in 2021. He held many ministerial positions over the past three decades.

He was once forced by Parliament to resign over corruption but bounced back into cabinet within two years after that resignation.

After the 2011 general elections, the opposition led by Dr. Kizza Besigye launched the “walk to work” protests against the government. A government which Kutesa was part of.

This brings us to the second Sam. To nick the protests in the bud, the government used brute force against protestors. Arrests, beatings, torture, teargas, shooting were all part of the package.

To stop Besigye from walking and to keep him under containment at home, the government identified a rough, unquestioning, barely educated police officer to “manage Besigye”. His name was Sam Omalla.

Omalla would perform to the expectation of his employers, combining brutality with arrogance and humor while at it.

The media loved and hated him in equal measure. If he wasn’t telling the media how he was “mukodomi ya Kabaka”, he would be assuring them about the tight security around Besigye’s home in Kasangati, near Kampala: “Today, not even a mosquito will be allowed to leave Besigye’s home…”

When Besigye, a former rebel fighter, beat the security occasionally and sneaked into town, the government devised a plan of preventive arrest, picked from an old and draconian law. With this, the political opposition in Uganda was effectively criminalized and Sam Omalla became the face of that process.

Omalla was so eager to implement this new strategy that he didn’t even have time to understand it all. When a journalist asked him what was happening, the police officer responded: “We have now put Besigye under detentive arrest.” Detentive, not preventive. Whatever this meant, only Sam Omalla knew. But he worked tirelessly, sometimes outside the law, to make sure those in government like Kutesa are not disturbed by “ungrateful foreign agents within the opposition.”

In the meantime he was rising through the ranks, picking promotions rapidly. The promotion has its own story we may not discuss here. But it was a message to other officers that unquestioning loyalty pays.

Sam Omalla retired around 2019 as a senior police officer. This was two years before Sam Kutesa’s retirement.

Omalla tried to mobilize at home to enter elective politics but he found the ground slippery. He settled for a job in a private security organization.

Both Sam Omalla and Sam Kutesa were diagnosed with cancer. While Kutesa was able to seek specialized treatment in Germany, in 2022, Omalla’s family struggled to get treatment for him, first in smaller health facilities before eventually taking him to Mulago where he died at the age of 65.

To thank God for healing him from cancer of the throat, Kutesa has built a church in his home area, Sembabule, worth at least two billion shillings. Not a cancer treatment facility for people like Sam Omalla who may not afford to go to Germany for treatment.

Two men who have served the same government and retired. One got another chance at life, another will probably be taken to the newly built church for a requiem service.

The story of the two Sams.