Uganda has been a home for man-eating reptiles. Reports from Idi Amin in the 1970s showed that up to 4,000 people had been disabled into the crocodile-infested headwaters of the Nile, which Osama is believed to have been a benefactor of this massacre.
Osama is a crocodile reported to be Measuring 16ft from snout to tail, and weighing one ton, he is believed to be over 75 years of age as of 2005 when he was caught. Osama allegedly devoured humans; he devoured over 80 humans during his reign of terror and blood, devoured anybody who came his way and was just 15 people who got a taste of his teeth and still lived.
During the tenor of Osama, the world’s most prolific man-eater, the Luganga village in Uganda never had peace, lived in Lake Victoria, and never spared any human it comes across. Children were forbidden from the shore. Many families who have lost dear ones in the hands of Osama longed for the day this terror would be captured.
Osama reportedly ate a father-of-two, Bosco Nyansi, a local fisherman that got missing just for the villagers to see his tattered clothing floating on the water. Since 1991, Osama had feasted on both the young and old, apportioning himself a meal that costs a tenth of the village population.
The people of Luganga Village formerly called the crocodile ‘John Major’ because of his size and the doings of john major, but following his reign of terror of his new namesake, the al-Qa’eda attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he was re-christened Osama.
According to reports, Osama began to exhibit a highly unusual behavior for a crocodile. He would carry children away from the shore as they filled buckets with water. He would often swim beneath fishing boats and capsize them. He would jump into the wooden vessels before carrying off victims. A survivor, Paul Kyewalyanga, said he was rowing in the back of his boat while his brother Peter fished from the prow when Osama came along.
According to him “He just emerged from the water vertically and flopped into the boat,”
“The back of the boat where I was sitting was submerged.”
As he(paul) shouted for help, the crocodile latched on to his brother’s leg and began to pull.
“Peter was clutching the side screaming,” he said.
The crocodile and Peter fought for about five minutes until he heard a tearing sound. Then, Peter shouted, ‘He’s broken my leg.’ Then he(Peter) couldn’t struggle again, so he gave up and was dragged into the lake by Osama. A few days later, his head and his arm were found.
However, the livelihood of the luganga community depended mainly on fishing. So, it was hard avoiding the lake. While some avoided the lake, others were calm; all they could do was pray. 64-year-old villager, John Mangene said. “We did a lot of that(praying). I would wake up in the middle of the night and get down on my knees.”
Finally, as they say, everything that has a beginning has an end, Osama’s days of hunting humans in Africa’s largest lake came to an end in 2005. It was trapped by officials using meat on a hook, 50 local men and wildlife officials after a stakeout in southern Uganda lasting seven days and seven nights. He was transported out of the village on a truck. It was a massive sigh of relief for the villagers; it was worth Thanksgiving for.
Authorities say Osama will be used for breeding stock and will now spend his remaining days giving birth to handbags. Osama is now the property of Uganda Crocs Ltd, purveyors of beautiful crocodile-skin bags destined for the followers of fashion in Italy and South Korea.
