Celebrating Namilyango’s Kibuuka: Where do big men go when they need to cry?

In the good old days – mid-80s and 90s – any stranger who entered the gates of Namilyango College did not have to ask who the headmaster was. You instinctively knew! Dr Peregrine Kibuuka was such a big, imposing figure, permanently bespectacled and with a commanding presence. You saw a man who walked confidently, with no small amount of swagger and an unmistakable spring in his step as though he was about to pounce on some errant chap. And you wouldn’t be very wrong; because Kibuuka didn’t suffer fools gladly! Paradoxically though, when this apparent bully began to talk, you didn’t want him to stop – he was such a gifted orator!
Organised, ambitious and uncompromising would be a good start when describing a man of extremely high standards, for whom ‘good’ wasn’t good enough. 

So as kids we had this impression that this was a man for whom all the pins were dropping just fine and he had all his ducks in a row. First impressions can be deceptive.
Namilyango College maintains a very large and close-knit family of old boys and teachers. Last weekend hundreds of people made it to Kibuuka’s lovely home in Magere, Gayaza Road, just outside Kampala to attend our headmaster’s last funeral rites (a year after his demise) and witness his son Peregrine Mutesasira installed as heir. As the Holy Mass ended, the priests invited us to pay our respects to the great man at his final resting place behind his house. A most unforgettable experience. Former Old Boys president Ron Kamara and I walked together behind Ms Jane Kibuuka and the kids – Peregrine, Flavia, Florence and Assumpta.

Kibuuka rests in a really beautiful grave; but what broke my heart most was a line of nicely done graves behind him. “These are the kids,” Ron Kamara told me. I counted: one, two, three, four, five! In the middle was the one I knew best, my former playmate, Edward Lubowa, who died at 26. It is one thing to bury a newborn baby; quite another when the child had grown up, and become the centre of your universe. When you bury a child that big, a huge chunk of your life is yanked away from you, without any anaesthetic!  

The man who had raised us so well, ensuring that other people’s kids were growing aright and were well on the way to becoming responsible citizens, had, all the while, behind and beneath his tough exterior, been shedding tears as he buried his own, regularly.
As I stood with Kamara, gazing at the graves, I reached the unpleasant and rather sobering conclusion that big men also cry; but quietly wondered where such big men go when they need to do so, for this man had always seemed okay. Clearly, many big people who seem to have everything going for them; quietly nurse pains that those on the outside, looking in, have no idea about. 

After Namilyango, Kibuuka went on to head St Peters, Nsambya. So one time, Kamara, anxious for a close relative to experience Kibuuka’s tutelage, asked an important gentleman to negotiate for a place. On learning who was behind the move, Kibuuka threw out the emissary. He summoned Kamara, who came running; and he asked him: “Young man, is this how I brought you up?”
Kibuuka was always anxious to know if his boys had turned out okay in life and was particularly disappointed that a boy he had raised had not had the courage to face him and ask for a place “like a man”. Kamara promptly repented in sackcloth and ashes, whereupon the great man signed up the new protégé Kamara was offering.

Uganda needs to make teaching absolutely romantic…and rewarding. You look at Kibuuka and you see a gold standard for teachers! He is a good reason for this country to reserve the teaching profession for the brightest kids, and ensure that whoever is enrolled to teach is naturally called to be a teacher. 
Sustainable development for every nation starts with strict and wholesome human resource development – educating and grooming children so that they can maximise their potential and become everything God made them to be. For that, you need real teachers, not just anyone.

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda     [email protected]