Hadijah Nakitende: That dependable friend of journalism

For the past couple of weeks, death in Uganda has been working overtime. It has given social media, especially Facebook, a funereal atmosphere — and death announcements have been too many to count. I, for example, have lost count of people I knew and had worked with who have died.
 
This week was particularly bad for journalism. We have lost several journalists, mainly to Covid-19. Some had done good things for which they will be remembered, at least by their family and friends. They have been eulogised but I want to recognise Hadijah Nakitende who succumbed not to Covid-19 but cancer. Nakitende has been one of the pillars of Uganda’s journalism in her own right. She died on Monday aged 55.

Enterprising
A little more than two decades ago, using her savings from Uganda Airlines, where she worked as a public relations manager, Hadijah launched The Sunrise, a newspaper. It is Uganda’s oldest weekly and has been used as a stepping stone by many journalists to build careers, some illustrious.

I got to know Nakitende in the late 1990s when I was contributing articles to The EastAfrican newspaper, where she had friends and visited regularly, often for business — The East African was respected by advertisers and readers.
Then in July 2000, two months after I had completed the Harry Memorial Brittain Fellowship at the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) in England, I joined Nakitende — and we (along with others) started laying the groundwork for starting The Sunrise.

We had meagre resources, and we were operating in a cramped office — a cubbyhole of sorts — at the National Theatre. But that did little or nothing to demoralise or discourage us because many successful businesses started in a humble way. We spent months discussing the newspaper design and format, working on cool dummies that got us so excited that we were looking forward to the day the paper would hit the newsstands. The maiden issue, if I remember correctly, came out in September 2000.

 Martin Ddungu, a whizz at using newspaper design software QuarkXpress at the time, got us up to speed, walking us through the real nuts and bolts.
Sam Sserwanga, who had been news editor at The New Vision, joined us.  The boss was Patrick Kabunakuki, who had been working with Nakitende at Uganda Airlines and whom Nakitende unfailingly and almost invariably called “Boss” — rarely Patrick or Mr Kabunakuki.  Many of us followed suit.

Resilient
I did work for The Sunrise for six years before I left in 2006 to pursue further studies.  After completing my studies, I was hired by Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar, and I did not return.
But Nakitende and her team carried on despite the many challenges newspaper publishers have had to contend with in this Internet age. She and her colleagues ensured the paper soldiered on. It still does. 

Warm and accommodative
Nicknamed Hajat in part because of her religion and the  way  she dressed on Fridays, Nakitende  was outgoing and affable, welcoming just about everyone who wanted to write for The Sunrise. 

Writing for the weekly was never about having a journalism degree or some writing experience. All you needed was a passion for writing. And that is how Nakitende’s brainchild set the stage for careers of many journalists.Many journalism students at Makerere University and UMCAT were eager to contribute to The Sunrise because they knew they could use it as a gateway to bigger newsrooms.

These are some of the journalists who either wrote for the paper for a short time or had a stint with the paper for years before moving on to work for other media organisations. Edris Kiggundu, Moses Walubiri, Wilson Kaija, William Odinga, Eriasa Sserunjogi Mukiibi, Ceaser Abangirah, Leone Ssenyange, Irene Besigiroha, Joyce Kyeyune, Carol Alyek, Mike Ssegawa, Othman Ssemakula, Henry Mulindwa, Bernard Busuulwa, Tony Owana, Shyaka Kanuma,  Dicta Asiimwe,  and Musaazi Namiti.

The teacher
Nakitende personally gave some of these journalists crash courses in designing and laying newspaper pages. The quick learners always found themselves being thrown in at the deep end, taking on duties of sub-editors even when they had a shaky grasp of English.
 
For many of these journalists, Nakitende will be greatly missed. They have her (in part at least) to thank for the success of their careers. For  me,  Nakitende and The Sunrise will always remind me of the grit and determination one needs to climb the professional and social ladder even when some of the rungs appear broken.