Echoing a melody of honesty and sincerity

Anna Adeke. A young ambitious woman, she has set her eyes on the leadership of Makerere University. Dennis D. Muhumuza writes that the budding leader believes that ego-centrism in leadership is Uganda’s biggest problem and she strives not to fall victim. 

The 2013/14 Makerere University guild presidential race has nine contestants, but it was evident from the rally I attended at Nkrumah Hall on, February 21 that the real contest is between NRM’s Boniface Okot and FDC’s Adeke Anna Ebaju, the only female contestant.

As she awaited her chance to speak, Adeke looked so innocent and vulnerable that for a moment, I doubted her ability to express herself.  But the moment, she took to the stage, she became a different creature altogether. With a dramatic flash of her party’s V-sign, she threw a few punchlines deeply into the microphone while droves of her supporters exploded, singing her name and waving her posters atmospherically.

“Anna Adeke’s heart quivers with a beautiful melody of honesty and sincerity, therefore, I will not only talk the talk but walk the talk,” she said and paused for effect. “ Anna Adeke has gazed at the star of political activism in an endeavour to deliver Makerere from shameless and vicious demons of greed and maladministration…”

The third-year Law student is by all accounts a gorgeous woman but that is quickly overshadowed by the content of her character when you get to meet her. It is her capability and intellect and not her sex appeal that will certainly influence students to vote her as the fourth female guild president of Makerere after Juliana Norah Njuba in 1987, Sarah Kagingo in 1998 and Susan Abbo in 2007.

Her assertiveness and persuasiveness reminiscent of Cecil Ogwal’s in her heydays have been shaped by her political pedigree right from Kireka Grammar Junior School where she was head girl, to Our Lady of Good Counsel Gazaya, where she was the treasurer of the Young Christian Society, and a class prefect at St. Mary’s SS Kitende. Adeke who touts herself as “A Dependable Servant” is presently the legal advisor of FDC Makerere Chapter.

“I’m a woman whose mind is a sanctuary of a clear conscience,”she says, “I have come to bring accountability to the Guild, and to give it meaning and a new face.”

When I ask how she is going to turn around the volatility of Uganda’s oldest and most prestigious university, which has since become notorious for its striking students, she drinks from her bottle of mineral water before answering: “There is a huge communication gap between the students and the University Council. I will bridge that and consult comprehensively so that students will no longer feel that they are not heard.”

She will also get to invoke her gregarious and charming nature, which those who know her attest to. Her roommate in Africa Hall, Miriam Amoro calls her a friendly, considerate and generous woman who keeps her word and is easy to get along with.

“She is capable of moving mountains for whatever she sets her mind to,” says Amoro. This is echoed by Carol Adyero, who studied with her in secondary school. She says: “Adeke is not only a nice girl with humanity, she is also very brilliant, open-minded, hardworking, resilient, and a go-getter who is not afraid to make decisions and take a stand.”


Adeke who hails from Soroti District is determined to stay true to her name, which means “For God” or “godly” in Ateso. The 22-year-old says her deep sense of destiny won’t even allow her to indulge in endless attentions from men. This is why she is looking forward to returning morals back to the Ivory Tower, first by setting an example of what it means to dress decently and by demanding the implementation of the policy against sexual harassment, which was enacted in 2006, but has somehow remains redundant.

How will she balance a demanding course like Law with administrative responsibilities should she win? “Leadership is not necessarily an impediment to one’s academic excellence. It is about service but it’s also about exemplariness. I must excel somehow,” she says, alluding to Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o (now Kenyan Minister for Medical Services and Secretary-General of the Orange Democratic Movement) who in his time at Makerere became guild president and also got a First-Class degree.

After university, Adeke sees herself very active in national politics. She wants to be part of the solution to ego-centricism in leadership which she believes is Uganda’s biggest problem. She hopes to set an example of servant leadership that inspires others to aspire for greater ideals. Is it then the time for a woman to lead Uganda?

“What Uganda needs is good leadership regardless of gender; we need politicians with a deep sense of nobility and virtue,” she avers. “So the question is the moral question in leadership, not the gender question.”
As a lawyer in prospect, Adeke is inspired by “astute lawyer” David Mpaga, and as believer is drawn by “the compelling story of Mother Teresa”.

She will not reveal much about her parents except that her mother is a business woman and her father, an accountant. She relaxes by listening to the music by Diana Ross and reading African literature, particularly the works of Ousmane Sembène, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche and Chinua Achebe.

Her last word: “Dream big. We are in a life full of possibilities.”
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WHAT OTHERS SAY
Julius Mutabazi, Coursemate Makerere University.
She is a politically virtuous lady and a paragon of integrity. The Guild institution has increasingly become bedevilled with deplorable corruption. It’s literally an arena of self-aggrandisement by the Guild Executives. Perhaps Anna Adeke is the great beacon light and the oasis in the desert that will restore credibility by digging the wells of accountability and transparency there. She’s authentic and a genius with a deep sense of destiny.

--First published in Sunday Monitor, March 3 2013

Reflecting on the life of TL Osborn

LEGACY: Renowned evangelist TL Osborn died on February 14 this year. Dennis D. Muhumuza writes that many Ugandans remember him for his powerful crusades held three times in Uganda. He was an inspiration to many Pentecostal pastors.

The late Osborn did so much for Uganda

He heeded Jesus' call to go make disciples of all nations and went everywhere, preaching the gospel. After 77 years of doing it passionately, Dr. T.L Osborn went to be with the Lord on February 14, 2013, but his legacy will continue to speak for itself.

Just here in Uganda, he held miracle crusades in 1961, 1985 and 1991 at which many got saved, delivered and inspired to join ministry. At the February 1985 crusade at Lugogo Cricket Oval, Osborn stunned everyone by removing a gown he had worn for 35 years and putting it on his interpreter, Ps Robert Kayanja, saying go and preach the gospel.

It is said the anointing that came with the gesture is what revolutionised the blessings of the man that today heads Uganda's biggest Pentecostal Church, Miracle Centre Cathedral Rubaga.

"I believe hell would be here on earth if Dr T.L Osborn was not born and anointed," says Ps Kayanja of his spiritual mentor, whose friendship, advice and wisdom he will continue to miss. "But I know he is with Jesus whom he loved and represented so well."

Apostle Alex Mitala of the National Fellowship of Born-Again Pentecostal Churches was also inspired into evangelism first through Osborn gospel tracts and books, particularly Go Where the Sinners Are, and his teachings.

"He gave us free megaphones to use in our gospel street meetings and trained us in many of his evangelistic meetings in Kenya in 1978," he says. "I was privileged to serve on both of his last gospel crusade committees in Uganda and with my eyes saw many great miracles in Uganda and also in Nakuru-Kenya in 1978. Uganda will forever miss T.L."

So powerful were Osborn's missions that many parents named their children after the evangelist. Ps Osborn Muyanja of Good Samaritan Ministries is one such child. He relates a story of a man with twisted legs he saw healed at Osborn’s crusade.

"I got saved too and my life has never remained the same," he says adding that the preaching of Daisy, Osborn's wife was the first to inspire Ugandan women into believing they too can preach. "“Osborn's crusades launched Uganda into another dimension. People shut their shops and went to Lugogo," Muyanja reminisces, "That thirst and hunger for God should return."

 Ps Michael Kyazze of Omega Healing Centre also remembers how Osborn's crusades reignited the fires of revival in Uganda at a time when Pentecostal Churches were struggling to re-emerge from the worship ban slapped on them by Idi Amin in mid 1970's.

"Through Osborn, we upcoming ministers saw that even the evangelists can be men of the Word and very apt teachers. I do not remember Osborn as a loose prosperity preacher, but a man of great integrity and passion," he says. "He also brought the first readable Christian literature for all to read and understand the working of the Holy Spirit which were distributed for free to all people who attended his crusade. We will truly miss him but will sure meet him in glory."

A simple background
Born Tommy Lee Osborn on a potato farm in 1923 in Oklahoma, U.S., among 13 children, he was converted at 13 and got inspired by another powerful preacher, Oral Roberts, who was a family friend.
In 1944, Osborn opened his own church, but feeling its walls would limit him to spread the gospel to all nations as Jesus would have loved, so he went to India as a missionary. He was hungry to see the might of the Lord delivering people but still needed lessons in patience and fervent praying.

In 1947, he attended a crusade organised by the then famous miracle minister William Branham at which the blind received sight, the deaf heard, and the crippled walked; deliverances Osborn had never witnessed, and that inspired him to fast and pray for such power. His prayers were answered with a visitation from Jesus Himself who promised to be with him as He had been with others.

The fiery preacher believed and started holding healing crusades around the world, starting with Jamaica. By 1980s, he had preached in over 70 countries. He also established the Association of Native Evangelism to support local pastors in all ways and plant churches. Meanwhile, audio and visual recordings of Osborn's sermons enjoyed preeminent demand and so did his books and tracts which were translated in 132 languages.

His indefatigability was attributed to a strict diet, exercises and absolute reliance on the Holy Spirit. That he eluded the financial and moral dents that destroy many men of God also testifies to his closeness with his Master, Jesus Christ, and added to the potency of his TBN/LTV sermons.

Osborn died peacefully. His daughter LaDonna Osborn tweeted that there was no pain or sickness: "The Lord simply took away his breath. My father was wrapped in love, his family surrounding him as he stepped through the veil into eternity. He is now in the presence of Jesus, whom he had served faithfully for 77 years."

Here was a man who ran his race, and who many believe will be welcomed at the gate of heaven with the Scriptural words: "Well done good and faithful servant."

What a man wants

CHOICES. In seeking to understand men, the Women of Makerere Full Gospel Church invited the Men’s Ministry to speak to them. Turns out men want much more than what today’s typical woman offers, writes Dennis D. Muhumuza. 

A young woman prayed passionately for “Mr. Right.” God responded accordingly, except that the man was physically not what she had expected. “He’s too small,” she confided in a friend, who foresightedly advised her to take a chance since the guy had all the qualities she wanted apart from his diminutiveness.A year into marriage, the small man filled up to the delight of the woman. Oftentimes men are rejected on account of their prevailing circumstances. Most women seek security but forget that it is not guaranteed by a man’s physical stature or material possessions.

A beautiful couple: men are looking for the friend they married

“The man that seemingly has nothing today could have everything tomorrow,” says Godfrey Mwanje, urging women to have a little more faith. Some women have also failed to appreciate that we approach life differently. Men are soldiers and women are tender like the roses they love to sniff. They should know better than to spend days sulking when the husband does not notice your new hairstyle. Men rarely notice such things unless you are a one Betty Kyakuwa spotting a “mountainous headgear”! The fact is most women are not ready for hard truths. She has these trousers that make her look like a cartoon but expects you to say she looks sexy in them!

“Good communication is the ability to receive hard messages,” says Eric Settuba, a father. Maybe your husband is the conservative type that finds thongs repulsive. Instead of blackmailing him with how other men would kill to see you in a thong, just go to the next shop and get yourself some nice cotton pair of “mothers’ union” if that is what turns him on.

Moreover men need words of affirmation but most women behave like the wife of Job who told him to curse God and die. If your man is starting a business that is impossible, don’t tear him down with negative talk; engage him with wisdom lest he thinks you’re judging his business sense. Submission comes in, and it’s not about you kneeling for us. It is simply about “acknowledging the man as the leader in the home,” as David Kamugisha defined it.

This does not make a man an autocrat who ignores the wife’s constructive input. The problem is the typical modern woman who is educated and probably earning more. She relegates all family activities including serving her husband, to the housemaid. She has developed the “balls” that make her return home at odd hours but expects the man to remain docile about it. She has tranfered the power she exercises at her work place to her home as well. Alas, the man is looking for the friend he married but finds an aggressive woman who thinks life revolves around going up the corporate ladder and making as much money as possible. It’s not bad to be ambitious but retain your modesty, that’s what we are asking.

A laugh will not hurt anyone
Also, we want to feel valued through your words and deeds. When you laugh at our jokes even though they are not funny, when you discover our favourite dishes and have them served frequently, we love it. Some women are overly concerned about trivialities like how a toothpaste tube ought to be squeezed. Then they prattle on when a man is dying to have some peace after a long day. Basically men are naturally introspective while women are “cackling creatures”, to use words of one writer. So a woman who knows when to speak and when to hold her tongue is a woman that understands her man.

Then some women think all we want is to be “sexed up.” No doubt sex has its place but without you keeping clean and in shape, you’ll keep complaining about us not taking you to the peak! Besides, if you slept around a lot before marriage you can’t expect your man to be a sexual wizard that pulls all the tricks of your past lovers. If that’s what you want, teach your man but go about it wisely. As Humphrey says, “Sex is a beautiful gift from God to the married and the highest form of communication.”

So if in a fit of anger you tell off your man about his “small member”, women who think otherwise will snatch him. Consider the words of Pierre la Mure in The Private Life of Mona Lisa: “Men, and husbands in particular, are prone to think themselves as great lovers. The perfect wife must never fail to let him keep his illusions on this point. Tactfully, she should extol his amorous prowesses and he would love her for it.”

--Sunday Monitor, November 18, 2012

How to Decode Uganda

By DENNIS D. MUHUMUZA

The Ugandan Paradox – a book title that was no doubt deliberately chosen to trigger something in whoever reads it. It’s all typical of its author, Joachim Buwembo, the Ugandan journalist known for poking the consciences of the authorities in his endless newspaper commentaries.

It would be interesting to read the tomes our social commentators would churn answering the question, “What is the Ugandan paradox?”

English poet Matthew Arnold once described journalism as “literature in a hurry.” After years of journalistic ‘hurrying’, Jo (as Buwembo is fondly known in media circles) has decided to “slow it down,” thus the arrival of The Ugandan Paradox, in fact his second book after How to be Ugandan (2002).

 Journalist Moses Serugo has described the book a “A riveting semi-autobiographical read penned in the journalism sage’s signature witty style…”

The witty style is of course an allusion to the string of humour with which Jo shoots his arrows at his protagonists and antagonists, but who view him as a hero or rogue depending on who is reading.
 

Jo who studied Economics and French at Makerere University, taught for six years before foraying into journalism, first worked at the defunct Weekly Topic, then The East African, and as Sunday Vision editor before moving to Daily Monitor as Managing Editor. Today he works with Citizen newspaper in Tanzania, is columnist in both The East African and Sunday Monitor. So he is up there with the Obbo’s, the Pike’s and the Oguttu’s for significantly shaping the Ugandan press as we know today. 

Jo has stood out not only for his prolificacy but mostly because his writings provoke a good laugh but also leave the reader better informed and educated about our history and the Ugandan way of life. His simplicity and clarity bring to mind the words of Thomas Paine: “I dwell not upon the vapours of imagination. I bring reason to your ears, and in language as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.”
While journalists are infamous for complaining about “writer’s block” Jo never seems to lack what to write about. It could be about the hurriedness of the Ugandan taxi man, the motives of the pseudo intellectual and the sham doctor, of men dying their hair and the Ugandan woman’s obsession with the wig, or even about the long forgotten Ugandan farmer.

His unpredictability chains the reader in anticipation. A sharp memory comes in handy as he uses seemingly insignificant details to dissect the big issues; cutting through the fat to expose the dirty bones in the national closet. Grilled by the small and mighty As a satirist, Jo has been compared to the late Austin Ejiet, is not as confrontational as Andrew Mwenda in his glory days but is equally blistering. In his words, he’s been grilled by the small and mighty in this land, even been sued over his ‘rumblings.’

 But to the young journalists striving for excellence and incisiveness, he’s a mentor. Sarah McClendon once defined the journalist’s role as “To inform people so they can help themselves.” Jo has not only lived to the billing but has extended it to his latest book. He was born in 1959 for which he joked in 2002: “I was born around independence time but because of the tumultuous history of our country in the 40 years, I’ve seen almost as much as those born around World War II.” 

To his fans, today is the day as Jo signs copies of the book at Aristoc Garden City from 10am to 2pm. The book costs Shs10,000.

Making her mark in South Africa

BY DENNIS D. MUHUMUZA

If you were asked to sum up Cynthia Ayeza in one line, it would be that she sure knows how to get what she wants. By the age of 26, she was already lecturing in a top South African university, and is today the Public Relations Officer for the Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars (CMRS), a prestigious position that not even the most xenophobic South African could deny our home girl after she distinguished herself academically and as a leader.

Ms. Ayeza’s dream at Nakasero Primary School was to become a pilot. But when she joined Rubaga Girls’ School she thought of becoming an architect, then a great lawyer. But all that had changed by the time she completed her A-Level at St. Lawrence Citizen’s College (Creamland Campus). Now she wanted to study English at university but her father wanted her to pursue Law. This disagreement cost her two years as she looked out for opportunities in alignment with her ambitions.

 Eventually she secured sponsorship and flew to South Africa in 2003 for a bachelor's degree in Languages, majoring in English and Communication. She immediately joined a local church, and got involved with its youth program. But it’s after she pioneered, along with three others, a campus student program called Chi Alpha aimed at injecting character in the future leaders that her leadership potential became manifest. That’s when the Dean of Students (Prof. Speckman) at the time encouraged her to apply for the Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship.

 “The Scholarship stems from Nelson Mandela’s desire to see exceptional leadership capacity harnessed on the continent,” says Ms. Ayeza, “but its uniqueness is in the way it juxtaposes the personalities of Mandela and Rhodes. It is a major representation of reconciliation which all of humanity needs to learn - to move beyond past injustices and press towards a more common ground, a common vision, and rebuild our continent.”

This is what got her applying, and becoming the first Ugandan Mandela-Rhodes scholar. She went on to ace her Masters Degree in Culture and Media Studies at the end of which she was offered a lecturing job at the University of Pretoria, from where she had attained her first degree as well. Two other Ugandans: Cornelious Ssemakalu and Anthea Pelo have since benefited from the Scholarship, and 178 Africans overall.

As the CMRS publicist, Ms. Ayeza now looks forward to having more than one Ugandan getting the scholarship in a given year. At the moment you have to be registered as a student at a South African University but there are plans to extend into the rest of Africa, she says.

“You need two academic references and two personal references and if you’re wise, have some leadership initiatives under your belt of experience during your academic journey,” she says of what it takes. “They are not looking for the A student even though that can help; they are looking for a well-rounded leader; one that has a good balance of intellectual, emotional, physical, social and global awareness; also your current context matters – what are you doing to influence positive change in it?”

A very light-skinned girl with small eyes that shine when she speaks of something close to her heart, Ms. Ayeza says remaining authentic in who and what she believes, is what has brought her this far. Adjusting to South African culture was not easy: “Being black, I was expected to speak the languages here (they have 11 official languages)," she says, "so speaking in English and Zulu or Xhosa or Setswana to some ladies got me rude stares and harsh words. To them, I was a snob and trying to be white. But as I got to understand their background better, the history behind it (not that it is an excuse right now) I understood. I think South Africans are open-minded people, not half as friendly as Ugandans but generally, as is the case with Africans, they too are warm.”

 She also talks of falling in love with the spicy South African salad dish called "chakalaka", joking that Indians would love it, but nothing lights her up as recalling her first meet up with Nelson Mandela. “It was awe-evoking,” she coos, certifying him as the world’s most charming icon!

The scene shifts back to Uganda as Ms. Ayeza takes us down memory lane; being born at Mulago hospital in 1981 and her father joking that she looked like a gecko, her childhood friends in Bugolobi flats that taught her bits of Acholi, and of loving grandparents that taught her how to dig and to speak and write rukiga properly.

 “We were poor, but we had a very loving and playful mother that strived to give us the very best,” she says affectionately. It’s this love and charm inherited from her mother, and the latter discovery that words and people are what make her happy, keeps her going in a capricious world. Soon after, her vivaciousness is replaced by introspectiveness as she shares her thoughts on what will help Africa to become a superpower continent that we all can be proud of.

“I’m always re-learning that there is more to life; indeed there’s more to life than our little cocoons,” she’s emphatic. “I think that generally, Africa needs to get to a point where it thinks as a mass community as opposed to the fragment-like nature that our countries are; Africa needs to consider dreaming as one in our respective contexts.”

 She also stresses the need to function out of who we are as a people and not what the world expects of us. It’s actually Africa’s potential to hold its own and the reality of God that drives Ms. Ayeza. She also has a word for women not to measure their worth against what the men are: “You are your own person and the fight is not against men. You are responsible for your own potential, so, live and play your part in the grand orchestra that life is.”

 Talking of orchestras, Ms. Ayeza is passionate guitarist whose acoustic strings she loves to strum when she gets away. CMRS work can be draining, and to keep on top of her game mentally and physically, this single lady reads and goes swimming on weekends.

A heart of compassion

BY DENNIS D. MUHUMUZA

Many people think it takes the Bill Gates and Oprah Winfreys of this world to help the needy in significant ways because of their affluence and influence, but one man from Kanungu District has defied that to prove that with courage and faith, anyone can make a remarkable difference.

Mr. Jackson Kaguri shows off his book

 Twesigye Jackson Kaguri had just left Columbia University as a visiting scholar of Human Rights Advocacy when his big brother died of HIV/Aids, leaving behind three little children. Five months later, his elder sister died too, leaving a son born HIV positive.

“I was a young man ready to tackle life and enjoy, and here I was with four children to take care of.”

The year was 1997, and a still grief-stricken Kaguri had no idea it was the beginning of a transformation of not only his individuality but of his community as well. The real turning point happened during one of his visits to the village when he was mobbed by the locals, mostly the elders whose sons and daughters had also perished under the deadly disease, leaving behind little orphans.

“All these people would bring these children to me asking for help because they knew I had had a good education; had been to Makerere and America,” he says. “I sat there and said ‘I want to be an uncle beyond my nieces and nephews; I want to make sure these children also can get an education.’”

 Kaguri was lucky his parents were selfless. Every beginning of term, they would sell a goat, sheep, chicken, and finally his father sold part of his land to keep his son in school. In turn, Kaguri worked hard and went to Makerere University on government sponsorship to study Social Work and Social Administration. It was an enviable achievement that made him the talk of Nyakagyezi, his village.

At Makerere his concern for the disadvantaged was first felt during a discussion in which officials from the Human Rights Commission gave a presentation on universal human rights particularly the right to education and health care.

“I told them this can’t be universal because in my village it’s not possible; people don’t have all these things you are talking about and yet they are human beings,” he says. “They got interested in my views and attitude and gave me a job, and I started writing papers on children and women rights, and that’s how I got a scholarship from Columbia University.”

There, he met and fell for an African-American beauty, Beronda, who he married in 1998, and with whom they have a son, Nicolas. In fact, it was while he was visiting with his wife in 2001 that he was mobbed by desperate villagers. He deeply comprehended their plight seeing he too had lost a brother and sister to the HIV/Aids pandemic.

 “We decided to use our savings to build three small classrooms that would serve as a place for children who have been orphaned due to HIV/Aids to come and get free quality education and extra curricular activities both formal and informal as a means to break the circle of poverty and deprivation,” he says.

And in January 2003, Nyaka Aids Orphans School was opened in Nyakagyezi village, with 56 children selected from more than 5000 Aids orphans. Not that the Kaguris were financially or even psychologically ready for the task but they had been overwhelmed by the plight of these orphans and knew something had to be done immediately.

“I had just gotten married and trying to build a family but I was faithful,” Kaguri says. “I grew up in a family that prayed and understood that what God promises He will deliver, so I was determined to do whatever I can.”

The leap of faith didn’t take long to pay off. Sceptics and enemies of progress who had hitherto branded Kaguri a con artist bent on using Nyaka as bait to enter elective politics and rip off donors, came on board and more donors after conceding the seriousness of the initiative and the lease of hope it ignited.

“Today there are over 200 children in our school; and everything is taken care of: meals, uniforms, pencils, pens, salaries of their teachers,” says Kaguri. “We knew just like my parents sacrificed to give us an education, we looked at this situation that these children deserved to have a person who would believe in them and invest in them; and that’s what we did.”

The initiative has since expanded with more classrooms, another Aids School in a neighbouring village, a community library, a clean water system that supplies the entire village, gardening programs for widows and Kaguri adds that 131 houses are being built for the elderly. In fact, he has recently quit his job as Interim Senior Director of Development in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University, to focus on his Directorship of Nyaka Projects.

He has also published a book, The Price of Stones, that’s enjoying rave reviews on amazon.com. The title is drawn from Psalms 118:22 about the stone that was rejected by the builders only to become the cornerstone. Released in the US in June 2010 and co-written with Susan Urbanek Linville, the 263-page memoir is all about the inspirational story of the Aids orphans’ school, the man behind it, and the challenges he has had to confront to keep it going and growing.

Kaguri has also worked as a Programs Assistant for People’s Decade for Human Rights Education (PDHRE International-New York), and was instrumental in drafting resolutions that were adopted at the United Nations Youth International Conference held in Portugal, in 1998.

He attributes his success to God: “I’m a Christian man, born in that family of 7th Day Adventists; my grandfather actually built a church in our village. My prayer everyday is for God to help me to touch someone’s life, and He’s really blessed me with being blessed by others while also looking out to bless someone else. So I juggle my stuff based on the philosophy that if you can’t help me do it, Lord, then it’s not possible.”

He spends his free time playing soccer, reading, and sitting by the side of the pool watching his 10-year-old son swimming. He will die a happy man, he says, if all these children that have been helped will mature into respectable and productive citizens that will give back to their communities as well.

Uganda's top biochemist is also a preacher, instrumentalist and and singer

BY DENNIS D. MUHUMUZA

A diminutive man in big spectacles and lines of seniority on his face stepped on the platform at Makerere Full Gospel Church and was moments later strumming his electric guitar and singing his heart out in an old-school style reminiscent of American country singer Johnny Cash in his heyday. The song, Give Me Grace Today, was a hypnotic preamble that got congregants lifting hands and singing along. The man’s zeal extended into his sermon on Walking in the Power of God’s Might, eliciting mighty “Amens” from his listeners. His name was Prof. John Lubega, in the country for a short visit, and Pr. Fred Wantaate had seized the opportunity and invited him as guest preacher.

Prof. John Lubega

    But this is Prof. Lubega’s real claim to fame: “I’m the only Ugandan at the moment who’s experienced well enough in laboratory medicine; there is no other.” Also the first Ugandan to become professor of biochemistry, he has for 35 years worked in some of the world’s best universities and hospitals, and distinguished himself with some inventions too. For example he was the first to crack the mystery of how a pregnant woman’s defense molecules cross to her unborn baby without leading to auto-immune diseases.    “I managed to work out the molecular configuration involved – the way the anti-bodies cross – and my work was the first to elucidate on how this process works.” 

       Now a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Biochemistry at the University Hospital, the Medical School of the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Prof. Lubega’s life has been one roller-coaster! Born in 1948 at Nsambya Hospital, his father Dr. John Lubega (after whom he’s named) had other wives and didn’t play a significant role in the bringing of his son. So Lubega and his sister were solely raised by their mother, Dorothy Namuddu, a nurse. 

     In the early 1960s when Pentecostalism was beginning to take root in Uganda, his mother embraced it, and one Sunday grabbed her then 12-year-old son by the collar and dragged him to the alter to get saved. Lubega reminisces mirthfully: “It was the craziest but most important decision my mother made for me. I was very stubborn but after that dramatic conversion, all the demons of boyhood left me and for the first time I experienced real inner peace.”

      Lubega attended Aggrey Memorial Primary School but failed examinations, on account of which he was denied admission to Mengo S.S. Still believing in the competence of her son, his mother managed to get him a place at Lubiri S.S. He repaid her mother's confidence in him by coming on top of his class from then on.  In fact, when he got into S.2, he decided he deserved a better school and wrote to the headmaster of Kings College Budo about it. To his delight, his prayers were answered!  This was in 1963 – the year his mother quit her nursing job to become a full-time preacher. Lubega panicked but somebody somewhere always appeared and paid his tuition fees. “It was the first greatest lesson I learned from my mother,” he says, “that whoever serves Jesus never lacks.”

    From Budo, Lubega went to Makerere University to study medicine on government sponsorship. After graduation, he landed a scholarship to the University of Cambridge. He pinched himself not believing he was in the same university that Charles Darwin of the Natural Selection fame attended. Surely this was God's reward for his mother’s faithfulness and prayers. Moreover this was in 1976, at the height of Idi Amin’s reign of terror when doctors were not allowed to leave the country. Lubega was helped by his diminutive physical stature; he left through Kenya disguised as a local boy in torn shorts and slippers! Lubega graduated with a Masters of Medicine top of his class and was retained as a student scholar. 

     He later moved to the University of Leicester for his PhD in Biochemistry, where he also took Fellowship exams in Medicine and Surgery. The University recruited him as a lecturer, and made him the second black person in the UK to become Head of Department in his field. The first is also a Ugandan - Dr. Richard Ddungu. 

    In 1985, Prof. Lubega left England after noticing that black children there rarely progressed beyond Form Four. “I felt there was some kind of deliberate move of discouraging them from getting certificates and beyond, so black people live mainly in the inner city where there are more problems and they get involved in drugs…I said let me move out of UK or my children may never be educated…”

     He got a job in Saudi Arabia, at Riyadh Central Hospital, the oldest and largest hospital there. After four years, Prof. Lubeba moved to Kenya and worked as Consultant and Head of Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Nairobi Hospital.  

      “In 1991, the Ministry of Health in Kenya recruited me and about 10 other doctors to design how to do HIV testing in the whole country but it’s me who started it there before the Kenya Medical Research Institute started to deal in HIV as well,” he says. “I also set up a top lab at Nairobi Hospital dealing with everything to do with laboratory medicine.”

       He was also teaching at Nairobi University when he was recalled to Saudi Arabia in 2005 to set up the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at King Fahad Medical City, the largest hospital in the Middle East. He says, “When the people at the University of Sharjah where I am currently, heard that I had set up ultra-modern facilities at King Fahad Medical City, they asked me to go and set up the same for the government of Sharjah. Sharjah is the third largest of the Emirates after Abu Dhabi and Dubai Emirates.” 

        After 35 years, Prof. Lubega feels he’s now well positioned to help improve facilities and provide better medical care in East Africa. “I’m negotiating with the American company Siemens, which deals with large medical equipment and has now taken over in the world in diagnostics – the things that can be used in laboratories to diagnose diseases, to see how they can assist us in East Africa to set up diagnostic facilities across the region. We’re going to start in Kenya next year, before coming to Uganda. The facilities at Mulago are overstretched. The private sector has set up a few hospitals here that are very expensive. In between, the common man has nowhere to go. Uganda needs at least five hospitals like Mulago but nobody seems to care,” he says, adding he hopes the situation changes as it has in Kenya where he has set up various businesses supplying technical items to hospitals. 

      Prof. Lubega attributes his success to assiduous reading and researching, and being alert all the time. He doesn’t drink or smoke and is always on the look out for challenging opportunities in his field, and taking them on by faith. “Most of all, I attribute my success to my mother who knew the secret of getting things from God – through daily, persistent prayer,” he says with a smile. “Everyday from January to December she would lay hands on me and pray for the blessings of the Lord to follow me wherever I went.”

      That’s why Prof. Lubega can’t help being a preacher every chance he gets. It helps that he’s dexterous with the guitar (he also plays the organ and drums which he grew up playing in church), and has composed over 100 songs through which he, accompanied by his guitar, expresses his gratitude to God from making him the preacher, composer, singer and biochemist he is. He is married to Esther Lubega, a computer scientist, and they have five children one of which went to be with the Lord.