Idi Amin’s Biography

Idi Amin Dada

Because Amin never wrote an autobiography nor did he authorize any official written account of his life, there are contrasting views regarding when and where he was born. Most biographical sources hold that he was born in either Koboko or Kampala in around 1925. Idi Amin was the son of Andreas Nyabire who was a member of the Kakwa ethnic group, converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam in 1910 and changed his name to Amin Dada in which he named his first born son after himself. Abandoned by his father at a young age, Idi Amin grew up with his mother’s family in a rural farming town in Northwestern Uganda. His mother was called Assa Atte who belonged to an ethnic group called Lugbara. Amin joined an Islamic school in Bombo in 1941. He left school in fourth grade.[Source]