Nandala Nafabi outside politics

His favourite food is mushrooms and matooke. He plays tennis when he gets free time, and he cannot stop calling his wife, ‘beautiful’. Meet Nathan Nandala Mafabi, the ordinary man when not in the limelight, and out of Parliamentary business.

“You know African men,” continues Florence who is back to her narration after settling the hall matter. “He pulled an African proposal one day. You know, the one that goes, ‘I really need to meet your parents,’” she says and bursts out laughing.

She describes him as the same humble loving, nice man, the qualities that attracted her to him in the first place.

So did she have inkling as to his ideas of going into politics? “Not at all. When he told me, I wasn’t ready for it, but I had made a commitment so I let him have his shot and see how it went,” she says.

A qualified teacher, lawyer and with a Master’s in Public Administration, Florence is not short of directions to steer her career. But she spends most of her time raising their two boys and three girls and running the family business.

Mafabi’s typical day begins early. “By six, I am in my suit. I, then, read the newspapers online and reply my mails. I head for my private office at 6:30am, then proceed to Parliament. I always leave at around 8pm and head straight home most times,” Mafabi, a teetotaller says.

“No gym, no social engagements for the most part, meetings if any maybe, but I even hold them at home , so I don’t stay out late much,” he adds.

“God just made me healthy,” he says, when I wonder how he keeps trim without frequenting the gym and inadvertently opening the topic of faith. What are his affiliations?

A man with spiritual bearings
“I was raised in the Church of Uganda and go to St Luke’s Ntinda or the one back in the village at Busamaga. But, I also go to any church, I even go to mosques,” he says adding that he also prays to God from his house.

For a man who calls himself a “villager”, he says the people in Busamaga are not awed by him because they recognise him as their fellow villager.

Mafabi has warmed up to today’s newfangled media. He is active on social media. But when it comes to recreation, he is a traditional person.

“I do not watch films and the only TV I watch is news. I read magazines like The Economist, Time and Newsweek but I also read books,” he says, then adds after a momentary pause, “Oh, and I listen to church music. I love classical church music.”

The only other thing that he does to relax is play tennis, “but only when I am out of the country and I am done with whatever business took me there. Otherwise, I never seem to find the time” he says.

He has since learnt that missing out on certain things comes with territory. “I miss visiting people, I miss the village. The children wouldn’t complain if they saw more of me. Imagine, I have only been to my daughter’s school twice!” he says. Mafabi can only really relax if he leaves the country where he tries as much as possible to go with his family.

“It is our only actual family time,” he tells me.

It’s no secret politicians who didn’t already have the skill, quickly learnt to think on their feet and come up with the most convincing of answers at a moment’s notice. And Mafabi, who has made 12 years in active politics, can hold his own. His response to how he would like to be remembered is impressively short and to the point. “As a man who fought for the common man. I have lived my full life, I have had my share. I have no regrets,” says Mafabi.