Idi Amin’s first wife Sarah Kibedi. She went against her parents’s wishes and married Amin at the age of 22 in March 1962, just seven months before Uganda’s independence.
She converted to Islam and became known as Mariam. However, it didn’t take long before she discovered Idi Amin’s sexual escapades with different women.
Incensed with Amin’s infidelity, she hatched a plan to catch him by lying that she was going to visit her parents in Busoga. To her surprise, Amin did not only encourage her to undertake the trip because she needed a holiday, but also encouraged her to stay longer.
She sneaked back and found Amin with another woman called Kay Adroa. A fight ensued between the two ladies, as Amin tried to calm the situation. Amin later apologised to her and promised never to repeat ,only for him to marry the same woman as his second wife the following week.
In fact, Miriam was not aware of the wedding until she saw her husband and his new catch Kay Adroa exchanging vows on TV in May 1966.
In his book, the Dungeons of Nakasero Apollo Wuod Okello Lawoko recalled how Amin once requested him to give Kay a job at Radio Uganda. She got the job, and Amin would pick her up in the evening after work. One time, Kay came to work with a swollen face and told Lawoko that Amin had beaten her. She then warned Lawoko to keep his distance from Amin because he was capable of doing anything harmful to him.
According to Lawoko, who was serving as the manager of Radio Uganda, one day Amin stormed the Radio Uganda premises, demanding to see his wife, who was presenting a live programme. He promptly punched the programme manager, who tried to explain to him why he could not enter the live studio. He proceeded to the studio yelling madly, grabbed Kay by the collar of her dress and dragged her to his car, and drove off. Henceforth, Lawoko tried to keep his distance from the volatile Amin.
In 1967, rumours began to emerge about Amin having another mistress called Norah.
Both Miriam and Kay decided to confront Amin to explain to them who this Norah was, but Amin gave them a thorough beating.
The following month at a party, Miriam and Kay had just taken their seats when Amin strode in with Norah, his new catch. The two co-wives decided to attack Norah, leading to a serious fight. That evening, Amin took the three women (Miriam, Kay, and Norah) home and gave them a thorough beating for embarrassing him in public. The following week, he officially married Norah as his third wife.
But it didn’t take long before Amin met another beauty called Madina Najjemba and married her as a fourth wife in 1972. In Madina, Amin believed he had eventually found the right woman. He consequently chased away the other three, telling them they were free to remarry elsewhere. He made this official in a cabinet meeting when he told ministers that henceforth Madina was his only wife.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have control over his insatiable lust for women. Just two years after marrying Madina, he fell for a military dancer called Sarah Kyolaba, whom he married in a fancy wedding attended by diplomats and foreign government officials, including Yasser Arafat and Vice President Daniel Arap Moi.
When Kyolaba left Amin in 1982, who was living in exile in Saudi Arabia, she took with her the third of her four children, Faisal Wangita. She spent some time working as a lingerie model in Germany before settling in London, where she opened a restaurant. In 1999, she was arrested and charged under the Public Health Act after customers expressed concerns about cockroach and mouse infestation in her London restaurant.
In 2007, her son Faisal was arrested by the London Metropolitan Police for being part of a London gang that murdered an 18-year-old Somali man in Camden. Feisal was convicted of conspiracy to wound, jailed for five years, and later deported back to Uganda. Sarah died in 2015 in Londo
IDI AMIN AND HIS WOMEN
BY DARE ADELEKAN
