Idi Amin challenged my dad to a wrestling match – then chickened out
My father, Samson “Sunlight” Okiror, lived an extraordinary life. He was a soldier, a rebel and one of Uganda’s most famous sportsmen.
A wrestler and heavyweight lifter, he could lift a car off the ground. He could tie a rope to a Land Rover and stop it from moving when the engine was turned on. He could stretch steel chains and springs. He travelled across east Africa and to Europe to train and perform.
It wasn’t a profession his family had considered. Samson was born into a farming family in the eastern Ugandan district of Serere. I was told he had a single bone in his forearms. But at 16 he was offered a job that changed the course of his life. He became store keeper for the 4th battalion of the British King’s African Rifles.
Even as a boy, he was strong, and his strength was noticed in the army. In 1965, the army gave him surgery on his right hand, which had been damaged by burns sustained as a child. To strengthen his arm after the operation, dad started lifting weights.
By 1970, he was a second lieutenant in the Ugandan army, and had become a renowned professional heavyweight lifter and wrestler.
He was called the “golden rock of Africa”, known for his crowd-pulling stunts – he earned mythical status in April 1975 when he anchored a helicopter, holding it down with chains as it hovered overhead. Two months later, he successfully pulled a ferry in Lake Nalubaale 100 metres to the docking area.
In 1977 the Voice of Uganda newspaper called “Sunlight” Okiror the country’s greatest athlete.
His skills reached the attention of Idi Amin, then president, who challenged my father to a wrestling match. The much-anticipated bout was slated for 28 July 1975 in Kampala, during a summit of what is now the African Union. Amin cancelled the match, claiming he was too busy, but, the whispers went, really fearing humiliation before Africa’s leaders.
“You see my [honourable] son of the soil, that I have had no good time to practise. The visitors are due to come, we people of Uganda must prepare to welcome them. We don’t need to wrestle now,” Amin told my dad at a meeting at State House.
Later, Amin would hire a plane to fly dad to Germany for training and performances. “Our country lacks foreign exchange. While you are there, collect as much [as you can] and send to your country. OK?” Amin instructed him.
I was born in 1979 and grew up hearing the stories – the man whom the most brutal military dictator feared to wrestle. He was a great dad. Very tough, but loving.
He loved us, his children, and his wives so much. He used to drive us around in his minibus and land cruiser. At the time, we lived both in Serere and Kampala. Our home was the only one in the whole village with a tiled roof.
People used to stop him on the street. Some people called him “Power Mike” – in reference to Michael Okpara, the 1970s Nigerian wrestler and former African heavyweight champion.
By the time Yoweri Museveni became president in 1986, dad was the Ugandan army’s director of sports. But he grew increasingly frustrated with what he saw as Museveni’s poor governance and in May 1987, he joined the sons of Teso, launching the Uganda People’s Army (UPA) rebellion. He was commander of the UPA’s headquarters brigade when he was killed in March 1991, aged 44.
I was at school when I heard the news and joined a group of children in running to the village, where hundreds of people had already gathered, to see if the strongman was really dead. Seeing my dad’s body riddled with bullets and lying in a pool of blood, I broke down and cried: “God be with you, dad, till we meet again.”
His death was a rude awakening for a 12-year-old boy whose mother had already left the family, and who had until then lived a privileged life. Our powerful family disintegrated. I had to leave home, as my grandmother couldn’t provide for me. I did odd jobs in people’s homes to make ends meet. At times I slept without a meal.
The family has struggled ever since. My dad’s army pension has never been paid nor have we received any compensation for the property and cattle lost during the insurgency in the north of the country.
Recently I started thinking about my dad’s legacy and his contribution to sport. I posted some pictures of him on Facebook and Twitter and began to hear, once again, stories about the “golden rock”.
“I actually watched one of his shows in Lira town during Idi Amin’s time,” commented one person, Djegeti Omara, on one of my Facebook posts. “It was very entertaining. I watched him hold a vehicle and it couldn’t move. I still remember that episode,” he said.
“Yes, he was a great man,” wrote Lawrence Okae, national chairman for the opposition party, Uganda People’s Congress. “As he parked [his vehicle] … a towering, well-built, seemingly toughlooking, confident man came out,” he said. “It’s at this moment we got to know it belongs to ‘Power Mike’ – Okiror, a man who could pull down an aeroplane.”
People still remember my father fondly. Perhaps it is not a surprise that the Ugandan government has never considered his legacy. On the 30th anniversary of his death next year, I would like that to change. I would like my father’s achievements to be honoured – for a sports arena or an annual tournament to bear his name.
“Sunlight” Okiror lifted the country’s flag high through his sport. For that I believe he now deserves some recognition.
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