Remembering a soldier of conscience
What you need to know:
- If Uganda’s future historians seek the definition of conscience, they will find it etched not on stone but in the lived bone of Major Kazoora’s story. So, citizens, tighten your moral kit. If you hold office, disinfect it with transparency. If you shoulder a rifle, polish the integrity of the barrel. If you wield a pen, let ink replace fear.
We lower our voices, not out of fear but to hear the echo of a life spoken in brave, steady syllables.
Major John Bashaija Kazoora has finished his earthly march, yet the cadence he struck resounds from the terraced valleys of Kashari Rutooma to the marble floors of Parliament.
Uganda has laid many sons to rest, but seldom one forged so completely in the twin fires of duty and candour. Born on August 4, 1958, in a clay‑brick homestead where sunrise meant chores and sunset meant homework by kerosene light, Kazoora learned early that truth travels faster than privilege.
At Makerere, he matched professors point for point, then walked off campus in 1981 to join Museveni’s rag‑tag National Resistance Army. He tucked two contraband items into his kit: a weather-beaten Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and a dog-eared copy of the 1967 Constitution. Those pages would guide his trigger finger more than any field manual.
In firefights, he spared civilians even when that mercy risked the mission; in camp, he lectured weary comrades on habeas corpus until they drifted to sleep under a shield of rights they barely knew existed. Victory in 1986 brought him to Parliament as MP for Kashari.
There, chandeliers could not soften his rebel heart. When the 2005 motion to scrap presidential term limits was tabled, he warned, voice calm yet cutting, that “a republic without fences soon becomes a pasture for wolves.” He voted No, and in that single click of the electronic tally, he became, irrevocably, the regime’s most articulate opponent.
Reprisals arrived on schedule, arrest, a Johannesburg hospital exile, asset freezes, but none could silence the man whose pulse had synced to principle. While doctors fought his failing heart, he wrote with ferocious clarity. Betrayed By My Leader (2012) was more than a memoir; it was an X-ray of a governing body showing fractures the state pretended weren’t there. Students photocopied it until the toner ran dry; security officers bought black‑market copies to know what fire they were ordered to snuff out.
The book cost him comfort but earned him a rarer thing- moral authority that no decree can mint and no prison can confiscate. Even tethered to IV drips, he drafted model amendments for the Whistle‑blower Protection Act (2019), filed an amicus brief that helped journalists face down the Computer Misuse Act in 2021, and in 2023 sketched a citizen budget‑audit toolkit now used in more than twenty district councils.
When asked why he kept at it, he replied, “Because surrender writes no footnotes in history.” On 21 April 2025, his heart yielded. Kampala awoke to the news, and traffic lights seemed to blink slower, as if saluting.
Two days later, All Saints Cathedral overflowed. Hon Miria Matembe, both aunt and comrade, stood by his casket and said, “Uganda denied him the rank of General, yet generals came today to salute him.” Decorated officers rose, caps pressed to their chests, their silence louder than any gun salute. He leaves three marching orders, scribbled in a shaking hand but anchored in granite: Speak the hard truth before it festers; silence is the first symptom of decay.
Audit the guardians, for spotless boots can hide dirty ledgers. Treat the Constitution like an heirloom, land-unpawable, un-saleable, non-negotiable. Men of his cut seldom appear twice in a century. They remind us that patriotism is not applause for power but insistence that power behave. They belong to that slim guild whose membership card is stamped with scars and whose pension is paid in public memory.
If Uganda’s future historians seek the definition of conscience, they will find it etched not on stone but in the lived bone of Major Kazoora’s story. So, citizens, tighten your moral kit. If you hold office, disinfect it with transparency. If you shoulder a rifle, polish the integrity of the barrel. If you wield a pen, let ink replace fear.
The flag folded at Rutooma is bright but fragile; it needs many hands to keep it aloft. Major Kazoora has fallen out. Our column closes ranks. Eyes front, hearts steady, feet in motion, until the republic he dreamed is no longer a dream but the ground beneath every Ugandan’s stride.
Authored by Alex Atwemereireho,
