27 years with the Daily Monitor, still counting

What you need to know:

  • Strictly Ugandan. The sophistication of the country is growing slowly, a country of people of average means is home to nearly 40 million people whom we must feed with the proverbial five loaves of bread and two fish. Ugandans are not spectacularly “technical” in taming their surroundings. But some things remain specifically Ugandan, lush green, vast communities of wild game...

In a few days, it will be Christmas 2018 and just one week later, a new year 2019. Life’s little milestones. Here at Daily Monitor, it will be 27 years since I first appeared in these pages in 1992. I pay tribute to those who invited me to these pages: Charles Onyango Obbo, the sage who wondered how I had mastered use of a typewriter after attending a normal prep education. Simon Peter Ongodia, my Literature teacher in Senior Six, who encouraged me to keep writing. Martin Lutalo Mpungu, who delivered the first article I wrote on a typewriter with heavy use of white-out. He now works with the World Bank.

I pay tribute to Ugandans from all walks of life who have been part of this life’s journey. One of life’s treasures is appreciating its great and worse moments. In 2003, my last grandparent, my grandmother, died age 92. This was 25 years after my other grandmother had died aged just 74 in 1978. Their husbands had died much younger in their prime. My paternal grandfather, a fisherman, was just 37 when he died in 1933. My maternal grandfather, a Catholic catechist, died at around the age of 50 in 1952. My mother, orphaned, began school “late” at age eight years due to my grandfather’s prolonged illnesses and wasn’t expected to thrive in school. In 1958, she topped East Africa in the Mathematics O-Level exams, and six years later, joined Vassar College, a preeminent college of the Seven Sisters.

Many Ugandans have similar stories of endurance. In just two generations, many have made the transition from very humble beginnings to very stable lives. President Museveni credits the family of the late Boniface Byanyima as having given him audience to test his crazy ideas in his formative years. Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, Uganda’s most honest clergyman born to peasant parents in Buddu, rose to become just the second cardinal in Uganda. He is now 92.

In 2018, Ugandans laid to rest the first woman university graduate, Sarah Nyendwoha Ntiro. The education of women has spread the benefits of western education much faster. The rise of women from isolation to professional positions has added a big dimension to the conversation. Christian women, most associated with the values of Christmas, have borne this burden as Catholic nuns, members of the Church Missionary Society, mothers union, etc.

The sophistication of the country is growing slowly, a country of people of average means is home to nearly 40 million people whom we must feed with the proverbial five loaves of bread and two fish. Ugandans are not spectacularly “technical” in taming their surroundings. But some things remain specifically Ugandan, lush green, vast communities of wild game, the Big Five still inhabit our game parks.
Ugandans love a good time even if it means boarding perilous water craft. Ugandans love their music and in 2016, began electing in record numbers performing artistes to Parliament. Parliament has a professional comedian who replaced an amateur comedian, a gospel music singer married to another MP and a performer MP who wants to be president, Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu.

Ugandans are 85 per cent Christian scattered among the older denominations, Catholic, Protestant, Adventist and newer denominations Evangelical, Pentecostal, etc. Muslims are just 15 per cent. Very few Ugandans, less than two per cent, identify themselves as other (traditionalist, animist) etc.
The vast majority of schools have a religious (prefix) in their official names. Even the neutral ones such as Gayaza High School, King’s College Budo, Mengo Senior School, Sir Samuel Baker School, Teso College Aloet, and Nyakasura School, have fulltime chaplains.

Ugandans of 2018 still strongly identify with their ethnic identities. Perhaps only Nigeria and Ghana have more kings/traditional leaders than Uganda. This cultural root explains why we wash our hands before we eat, kneel before our elders, attend Church regularly, even though many escape to traditional shrines.
Merry Christmas to you all.

Mr Ssemogerere is an attorney-at-Law and an advocate. [email protected]