Death of Kategaya; a man who liked the simple things in life

Late Sunday, Gwen received a call from the Kampala team that was making arrangements to receive Kategaya’s remains. She was in a dilemma. Kategaya had been clear that he didn’t want wreaths put on his coffin or grave. She knew it would be impossible to enforce that.

Saturday, March 2 was a “normal” day for First Deputy Prime Minister and minister for East African Affairs Eriya Kategaya in his Nairobi Hospital room.
He had his breakfast, read the Saturday papers, watched the election news on Kenya TV, had lunch, and talked with friends of his sister Gwen Kategaya who were visiting her from Kampala. Gwen had been by Kategaya’s
side since he came to Nairobi Hospital in mid-January.
He told Gwen she could take her friends to lunch as he was going for his physiotherapy session. A few minutes after they stepped out of the room, a nurse came running after them. As he was being taken out, Kategaya collapsed.

He passed on quickly.
There is usually a temptation to place the meaning of the lives of people like Kategaya in a grand picture of Ugandan history. I won’t. I will only say that Kategaya’s life ended the way he lived it – very simply.
Since it was a Sunday, most of the staff of the Lee Funeral Home where his body was moved and autopsy done hadn’t come to work.

I was requested to help and ring the funeral home director about some arrangements. When I told him the case I was calling about, he was surprised. He told me he thought Kategaya was the prime of minister of
Congo!

This might sound funny, but only if you didn’t visit Kategaya in hospital.
When VIPs from the region check into the top Nairobi hospitals, there is often security and a lot of ceremony attending them. There was no ceremony around Kategaya’s presence. And he didn’t have an entourage.
It was very low profile. It was the way he wanted it.

About three weeks ago, he was well enough. The hospital allowed him to be taken out for lunch by a small group of Ugandans. And so we did.
Apart from him needing a walking stick, it was the old Kategaya. It was wonderful to see. Later in the evening, I tweeted that we had gone out to lunch with him.

That was when some of his friends in Nairobi knew that he was in hospital. The remarkable thing, as some of them told me, is that Kategaya had actually helped or recommended them to get jobs in the East African Community. They were surprised that he was in hospital, and had not called in any favours.

Some time last year, he called me from Kampala asking me to make myself available for dinner with him in Nairobi when he came to town.
I went to meet him at his hotel at 8pm as agreed. The last time we had dinner when he was in Nairobi, it had been in his hotel suite. I expected it would be the same this time. I called his room and he said he was coming downstairs. He was carrying his warm coat. “Where is your car,” he asked. “It is in the parking lot,” I said.
“Bring it, let us go somewhere and have a drink, then go for dinner,” he said.

I asked him where his security was. He said he didn’t need any. I left for my car, panicking, terrified about driving about with the First Deputy Prime Minister in the Nairobi night and being car-jacked. I took him to a nice but simple expatriate hangout for a drink. After we placed our orders, I dashed to the washroom and booked a dinner table at a
fancy restaurant.

When I rejoined him, he said we would stay there and he ordered muchomo.
We talked and talked, and I dropped him back at his hotel around midnight.
I was worried to death all the time about our security, but he was totally
unbothered.

Kategaya didn’t take himself too seriously. He didn’t believe he had a mission to change the world, nor did he view himself as God’s gift to Uganda. He could have. But he didn’t.

Late Sunday, Gwen received a call from the Kampala team that was making arrangements to receive Kategaya’s remains. She was in a dilemma. Kategaya had been clear that he didn’t want wreaths put on his coffin or grave. She knew it would be impossible to enforce that.
So she told the party on the Kampala end that maybe they could allow two or three wreaths.

“He was clear, he wanted to have all his flowers while he was alive, not when he was dead”, she said.

For someone who played the role he did in Uganda’s politics, and in the ruling NRM’s rise to power, Kategaya didn’t wear it on his sleeves. And therein was his special gift - he was totally content in his skin. Few people who have been where he has been ever are.

cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com &
twitter@cobbo3