Edward Rugumayo

Edward Bitanywaine Rugumayo (born 18 December 1934) is a Ugandan politician, diplomat, author, academic and environmentalist.

He has previously served as cabinet minister in three Ugandan administrations.

Rugumayo was born in Kyenjojo District, then known as Mwenge County, on 18 December 1934.

He attended Mukole Primary School in Kyenjojo District from P1 to P4.

He then attended Galihuma Primary School from P5 to P6.

For S1 to S3, he attended Kabarole Junior Secondary School, and for S4 to S6, he attended Nyakasura School, in Fort Portal.

He was admitted to Makerere University in the mid 1950s, but he quit when the university did not offer him the course he wanted; he was offered Agriculture, but he wanted Medicine.

He was offered a scholarship to go and study in the United States of America, but was denied a passport by the British Colonial Administration.

Instead, in 1958, they gave him a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom.

He studied for the Diploma in Education at Chester College, then a constituent college of the University of Liverpool.

He then studied at the University of London, where he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Botany and Ecology.

When Rugumayo returned to Uganda in 1966, he taught briefly at Kyambogo before joining Makerere University, as the warden of Mitchell Hall, one of the halls of residence.

In 1971, Idi Amin successfully led a coup d'état against the Obote I administration.

Rugumayo was appointed Minister of Education, through connections with his friend Wanume Kibedi, a lawyer, with whom they had studied in London and who was an in-law to Idi Amin.

Kibedi was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In February 1973, one year and eight months on the job, Rugumayo resigned from Amin's cabinet; the first member of the cabinet to resign.

From 1979 until 1980, Rugumayo served as the Chairman of the Uganda Legislative Council.

He currently serves as the chancellor of two Ugandan universities.

He is a botanist and a community leader.

He went into exile in Nairobi, Kenya and Lusaka, Zambia, staying there until 1979, when Amin's regime was toppled.

After the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) and the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) captured power in Kampala, with the assistance of the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF), Rugumayo was appointed chairman of the National Consultative Council (NCC), the parliament of the time.

Rugumayo was instrumental in removing Yusuf Lule from power, when Lule disagreed with the NCC on procedural protocol when making cabinet appointments.

Lule was replaced by Godfrey Binaisa.

In May 1980, while Rugumayo was in Arusha, Tanzania, the Binaisa administration was also deposed in another coup d'état.

This time Rugumayo stayed in exile until 1992.

That year, he returned to Uganda and joined the National Resistance Movement administration of Yoweri Museveni.

He has formerly held the following positions in the Ugandan Government, International Organizations and Universities:

In 2005, during a cabinet reshuffle, Rugumayo was appointed Uganda's ambassador to France, a position which he turned down.

Rugumayo started Tooro Botanical Gardens, a 40 ha, natural tropical forest with rare native flora, with medicinal, dye-producing and perfumed plant species.

It is the only other botanical gardens in Uganda, other than the government-owned Entebbe Botanical Gardens in Entebbe, on the shores of Lake Victoria.

He also owns a mixed diary and crop farm measuring 20 ha, where he also maintains an apiary.