Oculi was born in 1942 in
Dokolo District which is present day
Lira District of
Northern Uganda. Oculi was educated at
Soroti College in present day
Soroti district and
St. Peter's College Tororo all in
Eastern Uganda for his O-level journey. He then attended
St. Mary's College Kisubi for his
A-Level examinations (S5 -S6). He entered
Makerere University Uganda's oldest university where he studied
political science graduating in 1967 with a bachelor's degree. During his undergraduate studies at Makerere, he spent one year, from 1964 until 1965, as an
exchange student at
Stanford University in
Palo Alto, California, United States. In 1968, he obtained a Master's degree from the
University of Essex, in the United Kingdom. In 1972, a Rockefeller foundation scholarship was given to him at the
University of Wisconsin.Here he was offered a fellowship and later obtained a doctorate in political science. In 1977 after obtaining his PhD, he took a detour to Nigeria dreading the new Ugandan president called Amin. This is because while at Makerere university he was part of a student movement that supported the pre-current president(Milton Obote) at the time. Oculi died in Abuja on 26 July 2025, at the age of 83. ==Professional work==