Mbarara residents eulogise Kazoora
The Former Mbarara Woman MP and also the former Ethics and Integrity minister, Ms Miria Matembe
(left), and former Kashari Member of Parliament John Kazoora attend the Citizen’s Parliament
session to debate and take action on the Public Accounts Committee report on CHOGM at the Hotel
Africana in Kampala in 2010. PHOTO/STEPHEN OTAGE
What you need to know:
- Kazoora led our greater Kashari, including Mbarara City, as a Member of Parliament. His leadership was based on patriotism, Pan Africanism, democracy, and socio-economic development.
Residents of Mbarara in southwestern Uganda are mourning the death of Retired Maj John Bashaija Kazoora. According to a family member, Maj Kazoora died at 3pm on Easter Sunday after having lunch at his home in Kampala.
“We were eating lunch with our visitors, and they told us that our uncle had died. He had just finished his lunch and felt uneasy and decided to take a nap. When one of the family members checked on him, he was not breathing,” Mr Denry Beine, a nephew to the deceased, said on April 21.
Mr Beine was in Rutooma Cell in Bwizibwera Ward in Kashari North County in Mbarara District at the home of the late Kazoora, preparing for the former legislator’s burial. “We are making preparations for his send-off as a man who has been a strong pillar of our family and helped to put more developments here and in the community,” he said. Maj Kazoora, the youngest of the eight children of the late Enock Kazoora and late Mangeri Kazoora, was born in 1958.
He was instrumental in the development of Mbarara District and Kashari County, which he represented in the seventh Parliament. “We called him Uncle John, and he has been a gallant son of Kashari and Mbarara District. He politically mentored most of us, and we grew up looking up to him. Many people have been mentored in the line of politics, being a true son of Africa. This is a very big loss not only to the people of Kashari but to the whole country and Africa at large,” Ms Margaret Ayebare Rwebyambu, the Mbarara District Woman MP, told Monitor.
Ms Rwebyambu said the late was an honest person who never shied away from telling the truth, no matter how hard it was.
“We are going to miss him, his words, confidence of speaking when he is putting his point right. I have known Uncle John for all the time I have lived. Our parents were friends in the line of church ministries. His late mother, Mangeri, worked closely with my father in the line of spreading the gospel,” she added.
Ms Rwebyambu said because of the late Kazoora and former Mbarara District woman MP Miria Matembe, she was inspired to join politics and speak on the floor of Parliament. “I have lost so much.
During his time in Parliament, you would see him on the floor and wish to be like him. Those were the times of Honourable Kazoora, Honourbale Miria Matembe as sons and daughters of Kashari who were confident, and they are people we looked up to and they are great examples to us in Parliament, community, even up to now,” she said.
Mr Basil Bataringaya, the Kashari North MP, described the late as a pan-African who loved his country and the African continent.
“I have come to pay respects because he led our greater Kashari, including Mbarara City, as a Member of Parliament. His leadership was based on patriotism, Pan Africanism, democracy, and socio-economic development. I knew Kazoora from Makerere University because I joined when he was a finalist,” he said. Ms Yeri Kenshoro, 80, a resident of Rutooma, who saw Kazoora grow up, described him as an upright person who respected humanity.
“He was a morally upright child who loved God and contributed to the construction of Rutooma Secondary School and the Church of Uganda. He supported many children to go back to school,” she said.
Mr Oubed Kamwanga, a lay reader at Rutoma Church of Uganda, said they will miss the greatest pillar of their church. “We have been expecting him to make more developments for us, but he is no more. He founded this church and joined hands with the community to have it constructed.”
