Muvumba: Ankole’s oral history curator

Joshua Muvumba is one of the few surviving distinct and well-grounded curators of Ankole’s oral history. Courtesy photo

What you need to know:

  • Despite his privileged upbringing he has curved out his own path. From a community primary school in Kyagaaju he went to Mbarara Junior School and later to Ntare School in Mbarara District.
  • In Senior Two, at Ntare School, Muvumba left Uganda for the US to study on a one-year exchange programme, before returning to continue with his studies.

Joshua Muvumba is one of the few surviving distinct and well-grounded curators of Ankole’s oral history.
The son of former Ankole prime minister, Lazaro Kamugugungu and son in law of the last King of Ankole, Sir Charles Gasyonga, Muvumba, 74, is a living encyclopaedia of the history of the great lakes region.
He is a well-travelled man, who has now retired to a quiet life in Kyagaaju, Sheema District, on a hill that overlooks Kabwohe- Intendero Town Council.

He is a University of Harvard graduate having received both his masters and PhD from the university.
Currently, he has retired into political and sub Saharan history consultancy with add ons in military strategy and international relations.
He has widely curated on the history of Ankole and other interlacustrine kingdoms within the Great Lakes as well teaching at Makerere University.

“My interest in history dates from the time I was about eight years,” he says.
Muvumba was born in Sheema District in the prominent Kamugungunu family.
He has distinguished himself as a scholar of oral history and his narratives are acerbic and piercing.
He is a good researcher who has read widely, which places him into poll position to authoritatively dismiss falsehoods such as the repeatedly told claim of how “Ankole kings used to spit in the mouths of their subjects”.

“If any king in Ankole did such a thing, his people would desert him,” he says, before dismissing other claims that say Bukuku was a gatekeeper of Ishaza during the Chwezi Dynasty.
“Only a foolish leader would hand-over his authority to a gate man when he is away. Bukuku was the head of security. Ankole was an organised kingdom. To state such falsehoods is an abuse to the wisdom of the Banyankore,” he says.

Despite his privileged upbringing he has curved out his own path. From a community primary school in Kyagaaju he went to Mbarara Junior School and later to Ntare School in Mbarara District.
In Senior Two, at Ntare School, Muvumba left Uganda for the US to study on a one-year exchange programme, before returning to continue with his studies.

However, he again returned to the US after his Senior Five, for his undergraduate and graduate studies after he had been offered a scholarship.
In 1968, he graduated and returned to Uganda where he was given a job placement in the Foreign Service but he declined to take it up.

Instead, he enrolled into Makerere University as a teaching assistant and resident tutor at Northcote Hall.
At Northcote Hall he stayed for less than a year before he was approached by the Madhvani Group to take up the assistant general manager at the Associated Paper Industries job.

“I moved to Jinja, which was a better town away from Kampala. I buried myself in the work of my employers and never cared about the politics of the day until 1977. I went into exile in Nairobi, living behind my young family. It was painful. Luckily, I got a scholarship to Harvard where I distinguished myself as a scholar. After 1986, I returned to Uganda and established the Karamoja Development Agency,” he says.

Distinguished researcher
According to Tom Katsyamira, the director of Mbarara Tourism Information Centre, Muvumba has distinguished himself as a man with deep understanding of the Ankole culture, whose held in high esteem.
“He knows which war was won where and by who and the year within the Great Lakes region off head,” he says.
Muvumba’s knowledge for culture is manifested through his conversations as he tells me of the history and the relationship between Banyaruguru and Banyankore.
Banyaruguru, he says were Baganda warriors, who simply escaped palace wars of princes Jjunju and Ssemakokiro in Buganda Kingdom.

Such knowledge makes him an exceptional researcher, who has read widely to authoritatively comment about Uganda’s cultural diversity.
He has authored a number of books including Ntare V and Rugingiiza-Nkore’s Last Warrior King.

Literally works and Banyankore heritage
His literally works are widely researched and touch on a number of subjects such as the origin of Ntare School in Mbarara and other such subjects.
Ntare School, he says, was named after King Ntare V, one of the Ankole’s ancient kings.
According to Muvumba, the greed among some Banyankore, which historically was a shame, has made them a lost people only admiring what happens elsewhere, especially in regard to cultural matters.
“If things remain as they are, there will be no language called Runyankore or people called Banyankore. Many Banyankore have been left to admire and praise the history of other kingdoms and have no knowledge of their own because of greedy politicians,” he says.