Dr Jerome Martin Aliker who was buried with state honours in Gulu Uganda last Sunday, was a popular Nairobi dental surgeon from the 1970s to mid 1990s when he relocated back to Uganda.
Born in Gulu Acholiland, Aliker fled to Kenya in 1972 just after Idi Amin came to power.Before the coup he had been Amin’s neighbour in the upscale residential district of Kololo in Kampala.
However after Amin took power, he was considered a security threat and ordered to move away. Making it worse for him was that he was close to the deposed president Apollo Milton Obote . He did not only have links in Obote’s government, but had also served as Obote’s bestman in 1963.
Nevertheless, as Uganda’s first dental surgeon with a thriving private dental practice, he was rich. He had also invested in blue chip companies.
So he moved away, and bought a new plot in the same neighbourhood where he built a magnificent house. But he still felt insecure. Consequently, in mid 1972, he fled to Kenya where he continued to practise. He also had direct access to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta who was among his dental patients.
He first lived in Hurlingham where his Makerere old friend Mwai Kibaki was his next door neighbour. With his dental practice doing well, he bought a house in Muthaiga. And a year later, Kibaki also moved to Muthaiga and bought a house next to him.
In Nairobi, one saw Aliker at his dental practice located in Mansion House, Wabera street where he treated people from all walks of life who were attracted not only by the superb treatment but by his kindness as well. Out of hours , he would use the practice as a meeting place with other Ugandan political exiles to strategize on how to remove Amin from power.
These secret plans also involved a number of senior Kenyan figures. A particular one in this regard stands out. In 1978, he was approached by Bruce McKenzie, a former Kenyan minister for Agriculture, who told him to fly to London immediately for an undisclosed reason. On arrival in Britain he was instructed to proceed to Knightsbridge hotel where he found Mckenzie, Walter Coutts the former colonial governor of Uganda and a number of retired British military officers waiting for him.
A plan to depose Amin had already been hatched and the meeting was simply convened to devise tactics and strategies after one benefactor offered to contribute 10 million pounds . According to Aliker in a previous interview, with the full cooperation of the Kenyan government, a military training facility was set up in northern Kenya to train those who were to overthrow Amin.
Unfortunately the assassination of Mckenzie, in May 1978, and Amin’s invasion of Tanzania in October 1978, threw the whole plan in disarray.Nevertheless,Amin was deposed the following year in an invasion backed by the Tanzanians.
From his Nairobi base, Aliker continued to support the successive regimes that came to power after the overthrow of Amin. He served as an advisor to president Yussuf Lule, president Godfrey Binaisa and Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. In 1996, after 24 years in Nairobi Aliker woundup his dental practice and moved back to Uganda after Museveni appointed minister of state for Foreign Affairs.
He was one of the key mediators in the negotiations between Gaddafi and the United States over alleged chemical weapons.
Apart from politics and dentistry , he was also an influential business and investor who held a number of directorships in top companies and oversaw the merger between the Monitor and Nation Media Group. He also promoted education and was involved in charity activities. In 2001, he made a personal contribution of 100,000 dollars towards Museveni’s campaigns
Dr Aliker made it a long-life wish that when he passes on, they should donate money to the needy children in Acholiland instead of buying wreaths. May he rest in peace.