The body of National Resistance Movement historical member Jack Maumbe Mukhwana who died on Monday is lying in state at Parliament.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has led legislators in the viewing the body of late Maumbe Mukhwana as they pay their last respects.
Ms Pamela Watuwa, the Mbale Deputy Resident District Commissioner, says the late Maumbe Mukhwana had been battling colon cancer.
Later today after Mukhwana lies in state in the Parliament lobby, his body will be airlifted back to Mabanga village in Bushikori parish in Bugonkho Sub County.
Mukhwana was the first Deputy Minister of Information in the Museveni regime of 1986, and is most remembered for helping guerilla leader Yoweri Museveni and his agents in Mbale in the early 1970s.
On January 22, 1973, president, Yoweri Museveni narrowly escaped being killed by Iddi Amin’s troop at Maumbe’s home in Malukhu Estates in Mbale town.
Iddi Amin soldiers surrounded the house and demanded the occupants including Museveni to move out and identify themselves. Two of his colleagues identified as Mwesigwa Black and a one Kazimoto were killed in the ensuing fire. The third person, identified as Patrick Namatiti Bukeni managed to escape through the back door.
The group later managed to escape into exile in Tanzania where they regrouped to start the liberation struggle, which ushered in the NRM regime into power.