A strong believer in integrity

The first impression you get of Retired Bishop Edward Muhima is that he is a principled, sociable and down- to-earth man. In his infectious smile and confident aura, lie a sense of achievement and fulfillment.

As I welcome him to Good African Coffee shop in Lugogo, our interview venue, he devotes what looked like five minutes to looking for a dust bin to deposit a used air time card voucher. “I don’t like littering however small something is,” he says. As we start the interview, I have to bear a few interruptions here and there from the old and young who come to remind him that he baptised them many years ago.

Divine design
Born to Petero Muhima on June 14, 1946 in Bunyaruguru, formerly in Bushenyi District but now Rubirizi District in a polygamous family of numerous children, Bishop Muhima lost his father at the age of eight but was lucky that his mother, “had heard that children get good jobs when they are educated.”
Thus began his academic journey to Nyakinoni Primary School then Bwera Junior S.S where he went for Senior One and Two before crossing to Nyakasura Secondary School. His grades there, he admits, were not good enough. He became a registered teacher while doing his High School Certificate (HSC) at Bristol College Britain by correspondence.

It was during his time as the school and church choir master, that someone saw the makings of a clergyman in him and advised him to go for theological training. For a man who had never seen young clergy and only perceived the calling as one strictly for ‘savedees,’ this bordered on mockery. But God, as it is said, talks to us in different ways.

According to the bishop, the person who mooted the idea insisted and made a surprise visit to his home with the Arch Deacon and a white bishop who prayed for him and left saying, “if you don’t feel qualified, the lord will qualify you the way he called sinful tax collectors and fishermen to his ministry.”

Confused, he sought advice from fellow teachers at Nyakinoni and got encouragement to go to Bishop Tucker Theological College in Mukono, (now Uganda Christian University). Fortunately, out of 36 applicants, he was among the top three selected.

“I was a smoker, a womaniser and I had a drinking problem and this followed me up to Mukono,” he confesses. In fact, had it not been for the colleges’ one-on-one evangelism programme, perhaps he would have got derailed, he ponders.

“During one of the sessions, a young man talked to me about Jesus in a way I had never heard and I was touched,” he recalls. But trust the evil’s roaming nature, he was still invited to open a dance in a nearby club.

While there, before he opened the dance, he narrates that he heard a loud voice. The young man could not figure out if it was physical or psychological. “Before you open the dance, tell the crowd you have received me as your Lord and personal saviour,” the voice said.
He first took it for granted only to yield when the third time the voice seemed aggressively louder. He inevitably made the proclamation. This angered his girlfriend, who, out of frustration, dumped him for doing it in the wrong place.

Making the same confession in church the next day transformed him. In 1973, he was ordained by Bishop Festo Kivengere after four years at the theological college. At this point he was posted to Kigezi College, Butobere as school chaplain.

It was during this posting that his life was turned around. During former dictator Idi Amin’s reign of terror, he had to witness one of his own students die in a firing squad. He turned to his music talent, composing captivating songs and playing the guitar to condemn the public executions, only to endanger his life as he was blacklisted.

It was against this background that Bishop Kivengere organised for him to get a scholarship in Chicago, USA, where in eight years, he completed a degree in theology, a masters in divinity and a PHD in Comparative Religions and Social Anthropology.

He finally returned after the ouster of Amin in 1981 to teach at Bishop Tucker for seven years, before joining the African Evangelical Enterprise in 1987. Thereafter, he became team leader for Eastern Africa after Bishop Kivengere’s death.

Climbing the ladder
In 2003, Muhima was approached to become Bishop of North Kigezi Diocese, an idea he turned down considering that his flock would be limited to a diocese. Interestingly, it was his 18- year-old son’s advice that made him yield. My son said, “Even Moses had several excuses but you can’t resist God’s calling.”

As bishop of North Kigezi, he says his most memorable and fulfilling contribution was, “preaching the gospel in word and deed,” The father of four passionately talks of the need for transformation and prides in this message as his achievement at the diocese where many cried when he was leaving, “If we are to change for better, we need men and women to transform and reform, have a renewal in thinking.”

This saw him make the congregation appreciate that in a modern era, a diocesan office block with wooden windows, horrible toilet facilities is not only a humiliation but can be bettered; that they can upgrade their Grade Three medical centre to a Grade Four rural hospital with a fully-fledged surgical theatre and above all, engage in income generating projects to support their families and diocese.

The man of God hopes to pass to the young generation principles that have seen him reach the peak of his illustrious calling such as, speaking the truth without fear or favour but in love and having integrity as a guiding principle.

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