When we arrive for our appointment, Col Fred Bogere, 60, is concluding a meeting with a business associate.
In the compound, another meeting of about a dozen people is in progress. The location is in Kagoma, on the Kampala-Gulu Highway, at the home of Maj Gen Eric Mukasa Lumunye, who died on July 2 aged 64.

The two former soldiers were not blood relatives. They didn’t even know each other as they grew up.
Fate brought them together in 1983 in the jungles of Luweero as they fought against the government of Milton Obote.

With Gen Mukasa now gone, Col Bogere has an assemblage of tasks to accomplish.
The duo, Col Bogere says, built businesses together, ranging from farming in Kyankwanzi to coffee processing, and they jointly acquired 8.6 acres of land in Bwaise at the Northern Bypass in Kampala, on which they planned to build a public transport terminal.
Col Bogere will have to go through this without more help from his counterpart.

When Col Bogere sought to get married after their outfit, the National Resistance Army (NRA), had fired President Museveni to power, Gen Mukasa was not his best man as would be expected of best friends.
The decision, Col Bogere says, was informed by the need for Gen Mukasa to be freed to take care of the logistical aspects of the wedding ceremony. At the time they were both officers of the NRA, which was later renamed the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF).

The two men raised their families jointly – Col Bogere’s eight children and Gen Mukasa’s 21.
When we met with Col Bogere on Thursday, days had passed since Gen Mukasa had been laid to rest in Kasanje, Wakiso District, last Sunday.
Col Bogere had spent all the days and nights since then at the deceased’s residence, standing in the gap as head of family.

We learnt that he had a bedroom designated for him at the home, just like his deceased ‘brother’ had a bedroom designated for him at Col Bogere’s home in Bugolobi, Kampala.
The duo also had joint land titles, Col Bogere says, and were jointly the patrons of Hotel Brovad in Masaka.