The impassable road that circumnavigates the rugged terrain to Lututuru hill leads to one of Uganda’s hidden historical treasures with potential to be a tourism site.
Hidden in Lututuru hill are the dilapidated remains of the state lodge that the former president Idi Amin built in 1975. The hill also has a place in history as a “rest camp” for the British during the Second World War in 1945.
Both sites are close to each other – about five metres apart and locals use them for drying grains on their open floor. Although Lututuru hill’s roots are deeply embedded in Uganda’s past, the lush vegetation blanketing the hill threatens to permanently conceal it from the public and history books.
The hill has significant educational value that the government needs to preserve and document for future generations. And if upgraded to a tourism destination, the hill has the ability to bring more revenue to the district (Lamwo) and country.
Lututuru hill is located in Agoro sub-county, 35km away from Lamwo town council, Lamwo district. About 500 locals reside in the 10 villages dotting the hill top.
The roads to the hill are deplorable. In fact, at some point, our vehicle got stuck and we needed a helping hand from some hunters to dig the car out of the mud. It took us three hours to negotiate 12km from the foothill to the site.
According to George Acaa Lamola, one of the workers who built the presidential lodge, the late president personally tasked him to supervise its construction in 1975.
“Being one of the locals who knew the hill so well, I was chosen by the president (Amin) to be the caretaker of the project and because of that, I made sure I executed my duties very well,” he said.
The 77-year-old Lamola says after its completion, Amin would stay and hold meetings at the lodge whenever he had any official duties in northern Uganda.
At one point, Lamola recounts, the former president convened an emergency meeting at the lodge shortly after reports emerged that his government was under threat.
Amin sat on one of the three cemented seats with Moses Ali, then minister of finance (now first deputy prime minister) and Ali Fadur, then governor of the Northern Uganda, sitting on either side of the president as he addressed the meeting.
“I remember very early in the morning when Amin summoned all government officials outside his lodge shortly after he received reports that [Dr Apollo Milton] Obote was planning to attack Uganda [while he was in exile in Tanzania],” Lamola reminisces, without providing the date the meeting took place.
CURRENT LODGE STATUS
It is four decades since Lamola last set foot on the hill prior to our trip. Although the building was ravaged by wear and tear, as well as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who sometimes hid there during the insurgency in the north, Lamola is still awestruck by how much of the structures still stand.
“Even if some parts [of the lodge’s wall] were destroyed by LRA rebels, it feels good to see that that my piece of handiwork is still alive. That makes me happy,” he narrates.
One of his biggest regrets in life is that he had not understood the value of these historical sites by then. Lamola, a former LC-V councilor for Labongo Amida sub-country, says as a result, he was “careless” when it came to keeping documented records about the hill.
“I never bothered to keep the work plans and photos that I think would have given more information about this hill and these structures,” he says. “That is why they were eventually all destroyed during the war because I never bothered to keep them as I didn’t know that they would be very important at some point, especially for the future generation.”
On what used to be a British rest camp, Lamola narrates that his late father told him that the structures were in the past used by high-ranking British officials who often sought refuge there when World War II was at its peak in 1945.
Lamola adds that before the hill became known as Lututuru, the people who stayed there at the time, used to call it ‘Mabati lwonga,’ meaning ‘iron sheets are calling us’ in Acholi.
That name, according to 86-year-old Petero Opiyo, a resident of Padibe East sub-county, came about because Lututuru hill was the first place in Lamwo to have an iron-sheet- roofed house (the rest camp) on it.
Opiyo says the new phenomenon attracted many locals whenever the sun rose, because reflections would be seen coming from the shiny iron sheets.
“We had never seen iron-sheet-roofed houses before. Many people used to move from distant villages just to see what these things (shiny iron sheets) were,” he recalls.
According to Opiyo, the British had also chosen the hill due to its strategic location that was suitable for their military operations, since it dwarfed all neighbouring hills.
“They [British] could easily see their enemies from afar; in any case they hid in thickets during the attack,” he said. “They stayed there for a long time until they abandoned [the rest camp house] when Uganda got her independence [in 1962].”
PUSH FOR RENOVATION
Lututuru hill is known for its conducive climate and loamy soils favourable for agriculture. Most of the food crops grown there are cultivated by inmates from Lututuru prison, which is also located on top of the hill.
The in-charge of Lututuru prison, Gautama Candano, says their prison relies on the food grown on the hill, adding that the rest of the harvest is sold to other parts of the region to increase the prison’s revenue.
Candano suggests that establishing recreation centres on top of the hill, where handcrafts made by inmates could be displayed for exhibition, would also attract tourists to the sites.
Figures from the seventh Annual Tourism Sector Performance report indicate that tourism continues to be a pillar of Uganda’s economy. In the 2015/2016 financial year alone, it contributed nearly Shs 7.3bn (or nine per cent) to the country’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – an increase from Shs 6.3bn in 2014/15 financial year.
Lamola appeals to government to step up efforts to ensure that infrastructural development is prioritised if the place is to be known for its tourism potential.
However, Lamwo LC-V chairperson Bosco Komakech says revenue collection is meager compared to the funds the district needs to improve on the social services – health, education and road networks.
“If Lututuru can be upgraded from just a production centre to a tourism centre, we believe our revenue would double and the standard of living for the people would improve,” he said.
Komakech said the roads leading to Lututuru hill have been neglected for long. He added that recently they had talks with Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) on how best they can tarmac the road to the top.
“UNRA can’t work on the road at the moment because the roads are rocky and need strong machinery. We are waiting for them to fully equip themselves so that we can continue,” he said.
The district boss expressed optimism, saying if government takes up the issue of developing the hill and renovating the historical sites, foreign income will be generated from the tourists who will visit the area.
“The revenue collected by the district will increase and the rate of unemployment among the youth will no longer be a thorny issue since many of them will have something to do,” he explained.
Lamwo district was able to generate Shs 143m in the 2015/16 financial year from local revenue collection, and yet more than two times that sum is needed to improve Lamwo’s social services.
The Lamwo district education officer (DEO), Banabanus Langoya, says the hill is a potential learning site for schools in northern Uganda due to its rich historical background and unique natural features.
“Schools in northern Uganda don’t have to travel all the way to central Uganda just to look at some of the historical sites, yet we have our very own that they can tour at a lesser cost,” he said.
The public relations officer of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), Vincent Mugaba, says if the sites at Lututuru hill are to be gazetted for tourism purposes, leaders from Acholi will need to submit a proposal to the board.
“When we go through the proposal and find that [Lututuru] has what it takes to be a tourism site, we will brand, market and look for funds so that tourists can come,” he told The Observer, adding that the historical building on Lututuru hill would most likely fall under the ‘museum’ and ‘antiques’ categories of tourism facilities due to their historical value.
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