Background
Wilson Lutara was born on March 10, 1929, at Palabek in East Acholi to a local trader.
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Wilson Okumu Lutara
Edit ProfileEducation
Educated at Gulu High School and Nabumali High School, Mbale between 1946 and 1951, before going to Makerere, where he took a diploma in agriculture in 1956.
Career
Starting as assistant farm manager at Makerere University Farm, he became an assistant agricultural officer and then secretary-general of the Acholi district. In 1962 he became Clerk to the Cabinet of Dr Milton Obote’s government and between 1964 and 1965 administrator of Karamoja district.
In 1965 he returned to central government as Secretary for Defence until 1968, when he was nominated by Uganda as director-general of the East African Airways Corporation, an organisation jointly owned by the three East African countries, based in Nairobi. At the time he took over EAA was one of the few world airways making a profit, but it was hit by the failure of the world trade to keep pace with expectations and the need for expensive replacements of the ageing Comets.
Before he could take far reaching remedial action he was called by President Amin, who had carried out his successful coup on January 25, 1971, to become Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism in the new government. In the reshuffle of June 7, 1972, tourism was removed from his portfolio. He played a major part in arranging the handover of Asian shops to Africans, when the Asians were forced to quit Uganda in August 1972, and for the nationalisation of British firms which followed.
Personality
A huge, burly figure and fast, articulate talker and thinker. More of a civil servant than a politician by training. He is best known for his three years as director-general of East African Airways in the days that it was a highly profitable airline.
He left to join the Uganda government a year before the airline was shown to be making big losses caused by slack accounting and financial control. As one of President Amin’s ministers, he has stayed out of the limelight. He played a prominent part in explaining and organising the handover of the Asian trading sector to the Africans.
