In death, Etima gets glowing tribute

KAMPALA. The ex-Commissioner General of Uganda Prisons Services, Joseph Albino Adriana Etima, has been acclaimed as the “grandfather of prisons reforms”, an educationist, mentor, an honest and development-focused leader.
Etima, 78, who has been a commissioner with Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), died at Nakasero Hospital in Kampala on Saturday evening. He had had chronic kidney failure, requiring bi-weekly dialysis for the last four years, according to the family and workmates.

Dr Monica Etima, a daughter, said their father suffered cardiac arrest at around 11am on Saturday a few hours following his booking at the hospital after complaining of ill-health at 1am.
A team lead by Dr Peace Bagasha tried to resuscitate him until around 5:15pm when they pronounced him dead.
“We are grateful to God for all the years he has given us to be with this great father and we think he fought for the right cause. May God reward him with eternal peace,” she said.

His employers, UHRC, working with the family and Uganda Prisons Services, represented at preparatory meetings by spokesman Frank Baine, are jointly organising the week-long activities for the send-off.
“He was an elder,” said UHRC chairman Med Kaggwa. “We, and indeed Uganda, have lost the richness of his experience and counsel.”
Praise for Etima rang out from the high echelons of government to his professional colleagues and relatives in his ancestral Terego constituency in Arua District. They singled out his selflessness, engagement in community and church activities as well as putting human dignity at the centre of his leadership.

“Etima was a very good public servant...he cared and catered for the welfare of the prisoners and built the capacity of the prison staff to offer better quality service in the country. He was a great patriot who loved his country,” said Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
Dr Johnson Byabashaija, the current Prisons chief, said the deceased personally interviewed him in 1982 and recommended him as his replacement in 2005. “He was a father figure in the service, a very good leader and mentor,” Dr Byabashaija said, adding: “He is the father of Prisons reform in Africa. The Education System as a rehabilitation tool was his baby. The observance of human rights in prisons, the elimination of corporal punishment, all that’s him.”

His village mate and retired High Court judge, Justice Augustine Kania, who is chairing the organising committee for Etima’s send off, said “his life impacted almost everyone in West Nile sub-region”.
“He helped a lot of people and encouraged education by actually personally paying [tuition for] many students in schools,” he said yesterday.
The retired judge added: “We, as the family, feel the gap, the pain and the loss intimately and the same is applicable to the whole of West Nile and Arua in particular. He was the pride of West Nile.”

State Internal Affairs minister Mario Obiga Kania, whose ministry oversees prisons, extoled Etima for modernising the service, introducing the best international practices and making the institution self-sustaining.
“When he was the head of Uganda prisons farm and later on the industry, he made them very productive. While dealing with the offenders, he treated them humanely and improved the human rights record of the prisons,” he said.
Dr Jacinto Amandua, the retired commissioner of clinical services at the Health ministry, said Etima, a staunch Catholic, “championed the construction of Ediofe Cathedral and helped in the completion of (the Anglican) Emmanuel Cathedral in Mvara (outside Arua town).”

Joseph Albino Adriana Etima

Born: April 7, 1940
Joined Makerere University in 1965 to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture.
Studied at St Aloysius College Nyapea and Namilyango College.
Holds diplomas, certificates in Prisons management, international criminal justice and international humanitarian law.
Reforms. Spearheaded Uganda Prisons reform.
He headed Uganda Prisons Service for 18 years.

Tentative Burial Programme

Today to Wednesday.
Mass at his home in Naguru at 6pm every day
Thursday. Requiem mass at Our Lady of Africa, Mbuya Catholic Church, at 2pm.
Friday. Body leaves for Arua, requiem mass at Christ the King Church. Body transported to his ancestral home in Mute Village, Omugo Sub-county.
Saturday. Requiem mass at 10am and burial.

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