Editing Idi Amin (section)

=== Early childhood and family ===
[[File:NakaseroMarket.jpg|thumb|[[Nakasero|Nakasero Hill]] in [[Kampala]], the district where Amin was reportedly born according to his family.|244x244px]]
According to Amin's family, Ugandan oral tradition, and his Saudi death certificate, Idi Amin Dada Oumee was born on 30 May 1928 at ≈4 am in his father's workplace, the Shimoni Police Barracks in [[Nakasero|Nakasero Hill]], [[Kampala]].<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=de Montesquiou |first=Jean-Louis |url=https://doi.org/10.3917/perri.monte.2022.01 |title=Amin Dada |publisher=Perrin |year=2022 |isbn=9782262074739 |location=Paris |pages=27–35 |chapter=Amin avant Amin |doi=10.3917/perri.monte.2022.01 |chapter-url=https://www.cairn.info/amin-dada--9782262074739-page-27.htm}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite AV media |url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=kywAJWW7ais |title=IDI AMIN: A Polarizing Legacy |date=9 April 2019 |last=Mutaizibwa |first=Emmanuel |type=Television production |publisher=[[NTV Uganda]]}}</ref><ref name="monitor_01012004" /> He was given the name Idi after his birth on the Muslim holiday of [[Eid al-Adha]].<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /> According to Fred Guweddeko, a researcher at [[Makerere University]], Amin's birth name was Idi Awo-Ango Angoo.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> There is disagreement on the meaning of the name "Dada", with some arguing that it meant "sister" or "effeminate" in [[Swahili language|Kiswahili]], but most sources agree that "Dada" was a clan within the Kakwa tribe which was observed over thirteen generations.<ref name="okadameri" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" />

He was the third son of Amin Dada Nyabira Tomuresu (1889–1976), an ethnic [[Kakwa people|Kakwa]], and his second wife, Aisha Chumaru Aate (1904–1970), a [[Lugbara people|Lugbara]].<ref name="monitor_01012004" /><ref name=":3" /> His father was [[Infant baptism|christened]] as a [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and born with the name Andreas Nyabira Tomuresu. According to British journalist [[David Martin (journalist)|David Martin]], Nyabira spent most of his life in [[South Sudan]].<ref name=":3" /> He converted to [[Islam]] in 1910 after being conscripted as a [[bugle]]r by the colonial British army under his uncle, the [[Kakwa people|Kakwa]] tribal leader Sultan Ali Kenyi Dada as a six-year-old [[Child soldiers in Uganda|child soldier]] and was given the name Amin Dada.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /> He joined the [[Uganda National Police|Protectorate Police Force]] in Kampala's Nsambia Police Barracks in 1913.<ref name=":3" />

Nyabira was forcibly conscripted into the [[History of the British Army|British]] [[King's African Rifles]] (KAR) in 1914 where he fought in the [[World War I|First World War]] during the [[East African campaign (World War I)|East African campaign]] in [[Tanganyika Territory|Tanganyika]] before being honorably discharged in 1921 and given a plot of land in [[Arua|Arua District]]. The same year, he joined the Protectorate Police Force in the Nsambia Police Barracks prior to being transferred to the Shimoni Police Barracks in 1928, where Amin was born according to his family. He was transferred to the Kololo Police Barracks and retired from the police force in 1931 and worked at the Office of the Resident District Commissioner in Arua District.<ref name=":3" />

His mother, Aisha Aate, was born to a Kakwa mother and Lugbara father. By all accounts, Aate was a traditional healer, herbalist, and a midwife.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> Ten years before Amin's birth, Aate joined the [[Allah Water]] (also known as Yakani) movement, which was an anti-colonial [[alternative medicine]] congregation centered on a "water of Yakan" that was infused with a psychedelic [[Narcissus (plant)|daffodil]] plant locally known as Kamiojo, described as the {{qi|LSD of Central Africa}}. The movement was repressed by British colonial authorities, who had judged it as rebellion.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Middleton |first=John |date=1963 |title=The Yakan or Allah Water Cult Among the Lugbara |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2844335 |journal=The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=93 |issue=1 |pages=80–108 |doi=10.2307/2844335 |issn=0307-3114 |jstor=2844335}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hansen |first=Holger Bernt |date=1991 |title=Pre-Colonial Immigrants and Colonial Servants. The Nubians in Uganda Revisited |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/722844 |journal=African Affairs |volume=90 |issue=361 |pages=559–580 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098469 |issn=0001-9909 |jstor=722844}}</ref> Despite being largely described as a cult, Amin's family claims that Aate was a priestess in the "Yakanye Order" which they explained as a {{qi|secret African society}}, of which Idi Amin was also a member, that used {{qi|sacred water and other mystical powers}} for warfare.<ref name=":3" />

According to Amin's family, Aate had cured Irene Drusilla Namaganda, then Queen of Buganda and wife of [[Daudi Cwa II of Buganda]], of her infertility. Aate's high-ranking role in the Allah Water movement allegedly gained the interest of the [[Buganda]]n royal family and her alleged connection to the family led to rumours of Amin's biological father being Daudi Chwa II.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /> These rumours were reportedly spread by Nyabira's childless senior wife, who was spiteful of Aate bearing two children.<ref name=":3" />

According to Amin's family, Idi Amin was given the title Awon'go ({{Lit|noise}}), in reference to rumours about his alleged paternity. Idi was reportedly chosen to take a 'paternity test' as an infant by tribal elders, which involved abandoning him for four days in a forest near Mount Liru in [[Koboko]] where they returned to find Amin still alive. The elders attributed this apparent miracle to Nakan, a sacred seven-headed snake in Kakwa folk religion.<ref name=":3" /> His brother and sister died in 1932, when Idi was four years old.<ref name="monitor_01012004" />

Amin's parents divorced when he was four, and most accounts suggest that he moved in with his mother's family in 1944 in the rural farming town of Mawale Parish, [[Luweero District]], in north-western Uganda.{{sfn|Hansen|2013|p=85}}<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> The divorce of his parents was reportedly due to the lasting rumours regarding Idi's paternity, which angered his mother.<ref name=":5" /> Despite this, his family insists that he moved with his father per Muslim tradition in Tanganyika Parish, Arua District, while his mother continued to practice healing in Buganda.<ref name=":3" />