Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu CITY
Joseph Olita, the Kenyan whose body structure and features resembles the former despotic rule of UGANDA field Marshall Idi Amin Dada, and the man who played the leading role in the famous film ,”The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin has died aged 70.
Olita died suddenly at his rural home, which is located at Alego Kogelo, Nyang’oma village in South Alego Location, Siaya County and the family members reported that he had succumbed to high blood pressure and diabetes last Sunday. His death comes only 24 hours after the burial of his mother on Saturday.
The actor’s rural home is just situated next to the Obamas Kenya’s rural home, where the Kenyan relatives and ancestral family of the US President Barrack Obama lives.Olita had just returned home from Uganda where he has been living while engaged operating a business enterprise retailing the electronic apliances in Kampala city. He only returned to witness the burial of his mother last Saturday. His body has since been removed from the village and taken to Siaya district hospital mortuary for preservation pending the burial arrangements.
The villagers immediately established the burial committee under the chairmanship of the South Alego Ward Representative Joshua Osuri. His death came a shock and dealt them a heavy blow to the residents of Kogelo Nyang’oma who said he was a very resourceful man of cheerful personality who was very much loved. The villagers consider Oita untimely demise as a “bad omen” coming so soon after the burial of his mother a day earlier.
The towering man who during his prime life stood at six feet 5.5 inches and weighing about 150kg, bore striking resemblance to the late Idi Amin. The only different between the two was that Idi Amin was a semi-illiterate person and spoke broken crocked English whereas the late Olita was highly educated person who received his education at the prestigious St MARY’S Yala High School. .
Olita , however, will be remembered as one of Kenya’s outstanding film star for not only his sterling performance and role in the Rise And Fall of Idi Amin, but he had also acted in other movies where he featured prominently The rise and Fall of IdI Amin was prime red in Kenya in 1981. The film detailed the controversial actions and atrocities of the murderous regime in Uganda under Idi Amin blamed on the former dictator after his violent seizure of power in 1971 after ousting the civilian government headed by President Apollo Milton Obote in a bloody military coup d’état in 1971. His rule stretched to 1979, during which tie close to half a million Ugandan intellectuals, professionals and businessmen as well as politicians perished.
Idi Amin was kicked out of power by a combined forces of Ugandan exiles and the Tanzanian troops in 1979. He fled the country and lived in exile in Riad, Saudi Arabia until his death. Some of the alleged atrocities committed by IDI Amin were grossly exaggerated. For example that he had killed his own son an ate his flesh and that he had killed one of his wives and chopped her body and kept it in a fridge were all false. Idi Amin, though had unpredictable character and temper was a very friendly person. This writer visited him and on many occasion had lunch with him at the Makindie military Lodge outside Kampala
On one occasion during the annual assembly of African head of sates and government summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Idi Amin invited this writer for a coffee morning talks at the famous Gion hotel, where his arch-rival Julius Kambarage Nyerere the President of Tanzania was also booked.
And two days later while personally piloting alone one of the two helicopters from Addis Ababa to Kampala, Idi amin made a mistaken landing at the Kisumu polytechnic where a huge crowed had gathered for the visiting American evangelist Dr BILLY graham mistaking the gathering as the crowed which had come to welcome him. He made an emergency landing in an area which was six kilometers outside Kisumu Airport He saw this writer and beckoned him, after which th Nyanza Police boss and the PC. Were informed .They came and escorted him to the Kisumu Airport and then to Kisumu Hotel whereIdi Amin gave lunch to close to 10 local scribers before flying back to Kampala and after extending ,a personal invitation to this writer to visit him for an exclusive interviews. Most atrocities in Uganda were act committed by Amin henchmen, most of them semi-illiterate Nubian youth recruited from Nairobi Kibira slums and other parts of the neighboring Kenya and drafted into the most dreadful State Research Bureau {intelligence}.
Olita had served with the Brooke Bond Tea Company based in Kericho immiedtaey after completing hs high school at Yala where he was an active member of the school’s drama Club. This writer was then the Assistant public Relations manager with the same company based in Kericho.During the time of shooting the IDI Amin’s film in Kenya, Olita had privately expressed his wish for a face –to-face encounter meeting with the real Idi Amin who was then living in exile in Saudi Arabia and even wrote toa letter to the forer Uganda dictator, but got no reply until his death. He was a very cheerful and friendly personality.
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