Lubowa was great editor of his time

At Uganda Eyogera, I met Aloysius Darlington Lubowa, one of the most intelligent and best dressed editors in Uganda of his time. He was not a trained typist, but he put his two index fingers to good use. Crisscrossing them on the keyboard of his old Remington at amazing speed, his output far exceeded that of many trained shorthand typists’.
A.D. Lubowa, as he was known to his colleagues and friends, passed away on December 7 after an illness which started with the loss of one of his eyes. My description of our first meeting (see first paragraph above) is contained in my memoirs titled ‘Son of a Rat Catcher’, published in 2014. A.D’s second name should have unquestionably been abbreviated to ‘Darling’, because that is what he was to many of us who were privileged to cross his path. I joined Uganda Eyogera (Uganda Speaks) after a correspondence course in Journalism with a British college, but A.D. subsequently became my teacher of practical journalism and a lifetime friend.
I did not let him down. Impressed by my output, he promoted me to the prestigious post of chief reporter during my first year with the paper. He always called me ‘Kitzimiller’, a nickname he bestowed upon me after my coverage of the shooting in Entebbe of ‘Naked Earth’, an American film in which two black Americans, Kitzimiller and Orlando, starred. Not long ago, someone called me from Germany to draw my attention to a live radio broadcast in which my name was being mentioned.
When I asked for the origin of the broadcast, the caller said it was from Ndeeba near Kampala, and that A.D. Lubowa was talking about his life as a journalist and the people he worked with. A.D. was a Catholic, but he always maintained good relations with followers of other religions, including the late Joseph William Kiwanuka (Jolly Joe), an Anglican, who was chairman of the Uganda National Congress (UNC) and owner of two rival newspapers, The Uganda Post and The Uganda Express.
Jolly Joe also owned the White Nile Night Club, which was situated next to Uganda Eyogera Printing Press. His papers often disagreed with the Kabaka’s government on policy issues, but though A.D., considering his religious background, obviously had some links with the then Catholic Church-backed Democratic Party, he never allowed those links to interfere with his editorship of Uganda Eyogera or his relationship with Jolly Joe. The two men respected each other, often met and shared a drink at the White Nile and discussed politics in a rational manner.
A.D. wrote about Jolly Joe in a manuscript yet to be published - ‘His power bases were his two newspapers which promoted the formation of political parties throughout Uganda, his pleasant personality and his oratorical skills, which earned him the title of natural crowd puller’. Incidentally, James Lwanga Miti, the proprietor of Uganda Eyogera, was a clan head in Buganda and hence a strong supporter of the Kabaka’s government. Naturally, his paper supported the kingdom’s traditional, cultural and customary policies in equal measure. A.D’s intelligence and highly organised mind helped him to propel himself from a newsman to ministerial appointments in the Kabaka’s government, first as a minister of local government and minister of justice in the 1960s, then as speaker of the Buganda Lukiiko (parliament) in the late 1990s. He was also a member of the Buganda delegation that participated in the London Constitutional Conference, which determined Uganda’s future as an independent republic. He served very briefly as a provincial commissioner when the system was revived and hurriedly scrapped after the overthrow of Idi Amin. With Margaret Kiwanuka, Jolly Joe’s daughter, who lives in USA, we once visited A.D. at his home in Maya off Masaka Road. As humorous as ever, he told us how he was caught red-handed drinking beer at the then Uganda Railway Club at Nsambya during Augustine Kamya’s Asian boycott in the early 60s. Under the rules of the boycott, drinking beer or buying commodities from shops owned by Asians was prohibited.
The events that followed included the arrest of leaders of the boycott, and as news of the editor’s beer drinking-spree spread, the circulation of Uganda Eyogera, which was the highest among those of the vernacular papers at the time, rapidly plummeted. I was wondering whether this development led to the collapse of the paper. May his soul rest in peace.

Mr Kiwanuka is a journalist, retired
Foreign Service Officer and Author.
[email protected]

Mr Karoli Ssemogerere’s column
returns next week