Kasasira: In memory of a kind-hearted journalist
Deceased: Risdel Kasasira, 45
What you need to know:
- Risdel Kasasira, 45, was dedicated to his work as a journalist, a family man who doted on his wife and two young children, and a real friend to many.
It has been said many times that there are friends, there is family, and then there are friends who become family.
Risdel Kasasira’s life was cut short at 45 last Friday in a car accident in Lyantonde en route to Kampala.
Kasasira, his wife, Charlotte Kamunana and their two children were returning from Kashagama Parish in Lyantonde District where they traveled for the New Year celebrations, when he met his tragic end. Charlotte hails from Kashagama.
He was a friend I met at the Monitor newspaper when I joined more than a decade ago—but he became family. Not just to me, but a group of friends.
We broke bread countless times in the streets, at home with his wife and children, and once at his family home in Rubaya Sub-county in Mbarara District where he was buried yesterday.
In November 2020, he insisted that Rachel Mabala, one of our colleagues, and I go to Mbarara for his young brother’s wedding. On the way back to Kampala the following day, he insisted that we visit his home and meet his mother.
She slaughtered a goat for us - Mabala, another colleague,Rosbell Kagumire and I. We spent the day at the farm as Kasasira told us stories of growing up around cattle, learning to milk by age five, taking the cows to graze before walking barefoot 15km to school.
He attended Itara Primary School, Nganwa High School, Kabwohe for O-Level, and Mbarara High School for A-Level from where he enrolled at Makerere University for a degree in Mass Communication. He joined Monitor around 2007.
When I joined the Monitor more than a decade ago teeming with ideals from Makerere, Kasasira was already a senior reporter. He and three other senior colleagues -- Barbara Among, Emmanuel Gyezaho and Tabu Butagira -- took me under their wings, giving me assignments and offering guidance.
In the newsroom work meant work. Then of course in the evening, he and other senior colleagues drowned us in beverages.
Kasasira majored in security and the military, which took him to reporting trips to Somalia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the DRC. He was a security expert on the Great Lakes Region.
The beat was quite beguiling and his stories punchy—that is what all young reporters aspire for—but I did not like the idea of being on the radar for intelligence outfits when doing my work. However, time flies so fast.
Soon I was a senior reporter and I was in his shoes. By now Kasasira was a reporter/editor between 2018 and 2021. We collaborated on stories involving a neighbouring country with a history of operating espionage rings in Kampala, and we shared a great deal of paranoia.
I was often sucked into these assignments by virtue of knowing my way around diplomatic circles. After my part, I always left the turf for Kasasira. Not once did he ever shy away from an assignment, however perilous.
Kasasira (left) interacts with Uganda People’s Defence Forces soldiers in Somalia in 2012. PHOTO/COURTESY OF KASASIRA’S FACEBOOK PAGE
He always grabbed the bull by the horns, reporting about this and that in the security and military circles where some of his relatives are employed. Some viewed him as a “traitor”. Kasasira was a fine journalist.
In journalism we say “you are as good as your last byline”—that you can write your best piece today and by tomorrow all that is forgotten if you don’t follow it with another compelling piece.
Kasasira’s compelling body of work is out there for all, including the story of an inside plot to assassinate key government officials opposed to the “Muhoozi Project”—of the First Son and now Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, succeeding his father, President Museveni.
The story in 2013 resulted in Daily Monitor being closed by the government and reopened after about 10 days and the entire company premises were declared a “crime scene”.
We moved our news-gathering operations to Crown House on Kampala Road where the company’s commercial unit operated.
Kasasira and another colleague, Richard Wanambwa, co-author, would be summoned to the police's Criminal Investigations Directorate over the story.
Kasasira and Wanambwa met at the Monitor and became best friends. The latter was his best man at his wedding in December 2018.
My last conversation with Kasasira by phone was on January 2. We scheduled to go to Luzira Murchison Bay prison to visit Wanambwa on January 7 and he indicated that he was travelling later that day. Wanambwa was remanded on December 15 over a case involving a broker, with State House connections, of the company, Vitol Bahrain EC which entered into a joint venture with the Uganda National Oil Company for a fuel importation deal in November 2023.
The same broker, who is also linked to the brother of one of the Speakers of Parliament, also brokered the United Arab Emirates investor the government is currently negotiating with to finance and construct the 60,000 barrels per day oil refinery. There are murmurs about the investor being phony.
Kasasira and Wanambwa would later become business friends. They co-founded the news site, Eagle, after the former left Monitor in 2016.
When Kasasira left Monitor in April 2021, he teamed with colleagues to start another outfit, the East African Centre for Investigative Journalism, where he moonlighted alongside other consultancies. He also freelanced for the Associated Press.
Kasasira always behaved humanely.
He never held a grudge against anyone. In journalism we annoy a lot of people and make it personal. Kasasira would often scoff at such with a guffaw. He was a man of few words if you didn’t know him well. He was also a chatty guy at the same time.
A family man
At a personal level, he always boasted of being the elder brother. So he often insisted on this and that, and a few times commanded. With a few younger colleagues, we often abided.
He was a family man and didn’t have to be around for me to check and the wife and children.
If I dropped by, whether planned or unannounced, and he wasn’t home, he would say, ‘I’m not around, but Charlotte is. I’ll meet you there’.
After the birth of their firstborn, Aretha, Kasasira nominated me as godfather and Mabala as godmother. He searched for a surname for his daughter but failed to settle on one.
So on a night out, Mabala christened her “Kaigongo”. We teased him so much about the name Kaigongo, until he finally settled on a surname.
Mabala and I often visited, wined and dined with the Kasasiras to celebrate Aretha. As Charlotte was breastfeeding, we would regale her with newsroom stories, while we swigged beverages.
Later, we would fetch a wine bottle for Charlotte, yoghurt for Aretha and a whiskey or gin bottle for me, Kasasira and Mabala,and talked into the night.
Mabala occasionally drove Charlotte for her antenatal visits, and Kasasira would joke: “Eeeh, you are taking the two Kasasira’s out.”
The second Covid-19 lockdown in mid-2021 happened when Mabala had left Monitor and eventually, the country, and Kasasira had been laid off in April; it was a crushing experience for him and the family. We helped him through the times.
During the lockdown, which was accompanied by night curfews and other limitations, journalists were among those exempt from most restrictions.
So occasionally on my way from work, I would grab a bottle of our favourite drink and yoghurt for Aretha—Charlotte was now pregnant with their second child and we reveled at home. The second born came into the world in September 2021.
There are too many memories we created with Kasasira, particularly before he got married and we started giving him space. But even then, during their wedding reception in Mbarara, we told Charlotte that: “Risdel is your husband from Sunday to Thursday. For Friday and Saturday, he is ours” and that it was the norm.
I last met him at 10pm on December 24, 2024 outside his home in Luzira to pick up a parcel. He beseeched me to come inside and say hello to Charlotte and the children, but I courteously declined; I knew we would end up ordering a bottle of our favourite drink and talking the night way.
The late Risdel Kasasira (left) and Mr Federic Musisi share a light moment. Kasasira died in a motor accident on January 3 in Lyantonde District. PHOTO/FREDERIC MUSISI
In hindsight, we would have been making the last toast. But I was rushing to catch up with another friend, Ivan Okuda. I promised that we would make a date in the first week of January and actually return with Mabala just like the old times.
I remember teasing him about the strange turn of life saying: “Who knew that on December 24 you would be at home?”
Before he got married and I think twice or thrice in between, we were always out and about until December 24 and resume on the 27. His responded: “You need to seriously consider settling down. We are not growing any younger.”
For the 13 years I knew him, during our discussions—especially about what does or doesn’t work in life the way we want it to—he always emphasised: “Frederic, I am your elder brother, so am telling you...,”you need to do this or that.
Often he would win the argument on the basis of that, or we would argue until the cows return home.
When it was my turn to make a point, much later, like on financial matters— before he started a family—I would squeeze him in a corner, saying: “As the elder, don’t you think...” you should do this and that. We would laugh about it; the convenience when I was his younger brother or when he had to step in as the eldest.
Kasasira exuded a kind, humble, and gentle personality. He was shy and yet he was not. He always kept calm and was as chatty as anyone can be. In a WhatsApp group of friends, he often surprised us by inserting himself in discussions on the English Premier League and yet you would never find him watching it.
When he didn’t know something or wasn’t sure he would say so. Forever in our memories for the goodness of his character, the largeness of his heart and purity of soul. Until we meet again.
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