Phillip Drametu: From refugee  to top manager of real estate firm

George Phillip Drametu is a Ugandan-born lawyer in Toronto, Canada. Today he’s one of the top managers at the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO), a consumer protection organisation that regulates real estate salespersons, brokers and brokerages on behalf of the Ontario provincial government. 

The agency regulates more than 80,000 real estate professionals and educates Ontario consumers about buying and selling a home. Drametu’s journey to the top starts in a dark place, somewhere in Jinja District.

1980 elections
December 11, 1980. Uganda’s first general election since independence has just concluded in a very painful anti-climax. 

It’s been a hotbed of political instability, struggling through three bloody coup d’états since independence in 1962. Memories of Idi Amin’s repressive regime and the 1979 war that overthrew him are still fresh in people’s minds. 

Ugandans view this election as the only chance to start over. They come out in large numbers (85.2 per cent) to assert their will.

 When Dr Apollo Milton Obote of the Uganda Peoples Congress is announced winner, some Ugandans are up in arms, which is literally the case for a group of 27 men led by a one Yoweri Museveni. As it turns out, the election is not a new beginning at all, but rather, a continuation of political malaise for Ugandans.

Somewhere in Jinja, Mariano Amumbe Drametu, the deputy head teacher of Kakira Secondary School, knows he’s in grave danger. 

He’s been openly campaigning against Obote, as a member of the DP, and there are clear signs that security operatives are coming for him. He flees to Kenya in a matter of hours, leaving his wife and seven young children behind.

On arrival in Kenya, Drametu starts an extensive plan to move his family. By the end of March, every last member of his family has joined him in Kiambu near Nairobi, one small group at a time.
The reunion is a bitter-sweet moment. While it is such a relief that the family is safe, it is burdensome that they are now refugees in a strange land. This is more so for Drametu’s eldest son, George Phillip Drametu, 18. 

He’s completed his S4 at Kakira Secondary School and is very eager to join S5. But the school year in Kenya is already two months in progress. So he has to sit home for a whole year and wait his turn.

“We were basically aliens in Kenya, with minimal rights. For instance, in 1982, when it was time for me to join A-Level, it was impossible to get a place in a government-aided school. We drove through the whole of western Kenya looking for place to no avail. I ended up joining in Strathmore College School, a private school,” Drametu remembers.

But not all is lost. His father has been lucky to find a new job as a lecturer at Thogoto Teachers’ College in Kiambu. So at least he can afford to pay the school fees. 

And so, Drametu joins Strathmore College School to read History, Economics and Geography. He completes his A-Level in 1983 and yet another problem arises. 

Lesotho
“After completing my A-Level, it was very unlikely that as an alien living in Kenya, I would get admitted to a university in Kenya.

 At that time there were only two universities: Nairobi University and Kenyatta University. And that same year, they introduced the national youth service before joining university and that did not include aliens like me. So I applied to very many universities in Africa and Britain. I got admitted to Lesotho for Law on a full scholarship,” he says.

Drametu’s time in exile has instilled in him a passion for Human Rights and International law. He completes his bachelor of Arts in Law (BA [Law]) degree in 1987 and he immediately registers for a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Degree which he completes in 1989.

“After my second law degree, I intended to go for postgraduate studies in Human Rights and International Law immediately. But I wasn’t able to do so due to difficulty in getting funds. 

So instead, I got a job as teacher of English, Literature and Development studies in Peka High School in Leribe District, Lesotho, from 1989 to 1991,” he says.

In March 1991, he’s called to the Bar in Lesotho. He henceforth turns away from teaching and becomes an advocate. He gets a job in the Office of the Chief Legal Aid Counsel. Soon after, he marries his college sweetheart, Limpho Sekoli, a Mosotho woman. Life is full of love and hope, finally.

Running to Canada
In Jan 1992, the political climate is changing throughout South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison two years earlier. Only God knows how it will pan out. And because Lesotho is a country within a country, enclaved within the borders of South Africa, any political turmoil in South Africa can spill into Lesotho.

 Drametu has been through this before and he doesn’t want to wait to see how it will end. So knows that he must flee when there is still time. 

However, he can’t come to Uganda. His spiritual connection to Uganda was severed by the dark circumstances that surrounded his leaving. He decides to move to Canada.

Drametu settles in the Kitchener-Waterloo. One of the darkest periods of his life as a refugee is just about to start. Over and above the brutally cold weather, life is extremely difficult, full of loneliness, hunger, racism and all manner of frustration. All the educational qualifications he possesses mean nothing here. 

March 1992, he joins Working for Work, a job search support group for new Canadians. For three weeks, Drametu has to relearn how to write resumes and cover letters. He had to relearn interview skills so that he can stand a chance of getting a job. 

“The support group came with a two-month work placement where we obtained the necessary Canadian experience. I got a work placement with Waterloo Region Legal Clinic, where I was able to do research for a lawyer. Once in a while, I would accompany him to court to see how the system worked here,” he says. 
 
First break
When the placement ends, Drametu decides to involve himself in various community agencies as a volunteer, just for his sanity’s sake. September 1992, Working for Work (the agency that helped him) starts looking for a person to facilitate the groups of new Canadians looking to find jobs. He applies and gets it! 

With his new job, he can finally afford to have his wife and new-born baby to come and join him. His second son is born in 1994. Slowly, the daily grind of feeding his growing young family is fast becoming priority over his passion for International Law. 

“I had resolved to settle for doing all I could to create opportunities for my children to succeed. It was a sacrifice that was worth making,” he says. 

But his perceptive wife couldn’t let him do this to himself. 
“She encouraged me to apply to the National Committee on Accreditation of Foreign Qualifications to assess my Law degrees. 

Which I did. I was advised that I needed to take a number of courses to get some Canadian content into my qualifications following which I would be eligible for call to the Bar in Ontario,” he says.

He resigns from his job at Working for Work and joins University of Toronto to complete the requirements. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

“In 1997 I got an articling position as a student-at-law with Ontario Ministry Consumer and Commercial relations. I completed my articles in 1998. I took my bar admission exam and got called to the Bar as a barrister and solicitor of the law society of upper Canada in 1999,” he says. 

In February 2000, Drametu joined RECO as an in-house counsel. Today, 20 years on, Drametu is the director of the Litigation Department and the Chief Privacy Officer of the organisation having earned this position in 2017.

 He currently oversees a team of eight lawyers, two para-legals and four legal assistants.