Dr. Martin Jerome Okec Aliker, a Ugandan dental surgeon, businessman, entrepreneur, and community leader has passed on at 95.
Dr. Aliker was a senior presidential adviser and has sat on the board of directors of nearly forty Ugandan companies. He also served as the chancellor of Victoria University Uganda. From 2004 until 2014, he served as the founding chancellor of Gulu University, a public university.
Dr. Aliker was born in Gulu District on 21 October 1928 to Rwot Lacito Okech and Julaina Auma, a daughter of Musa Ali, the first ordained Anglican priest in the region of the Acholi.
He attended Gulu High School for his primary education, before transferring to Kings College Budo for his O-Level studies. In 1948, he was admitted to Makerere University, the oldest public university in East Africa. Before he could complete his studies at Makerere, he won a scholarship to Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois, United States, where he studied political science, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
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Following that, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study dental surgery, also at Northwestern, graduating with a Doctor of Dental Surgery. Later, he was awarded the title of Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.