Even in death, Aggrey Siryoyi Awori was an enigma. Hours after he had died, there was a debate about which side of life he was. A fake post declaring that the news of his death was fake was doing the social media rounds. People’s love affair with forwarding anything and everything that lands in their inboxes was in full gear, quickly casting doubt on posts such as mine on Facebook in which I had informed readers that Awori had died in Kampala.
I quickly realised that this was Uncle Aggrey bowing out with a mischievous smile. I imagined him smiling at the folly of the world he had just left behind. A world that he had enjoyed thoroughly, one to which he had contributed his fair share of mischief.
I had the privilege of being Awori’s relative through marriage. His nephew, a very dear friend, is the husband of my beloved cousin. So, my reaction to his death was one of personal loss of a man whose fascinating life I had treasured because he was one of us.
I first “met” Awori at King’s College, Budo in either 1967 or 1968. He had been invited as the honoured guest at the school Founder’s Day that featured a heavy dose of competitive sports. As an Old Budonian, a world-class athlete that had represented Uganda at the Olympics and at Commonwealth Games, a Harvard University graduate, and Director of Uganda Television, Awori was loaded with the credentials to earn him an invitation from Ian Cameron Robinson, the headmaster of Budo.
Awori was tall, ramrod straight, handsome with a terrific smile, and very smartly dressed. He made an impression on me that has endured to this day. I do not recall the content of his speech, but it is very likely that I was too busy admiring him to understand what words of wisdom he was sharing with us.
More than twenty years later, he became my in-law, and I began to learn a lot about him through conversations with some of his relatives and close associates. I came to learn that at his core, Awori was an “adrenaline junkie,” never satisfied until he had pushed the envelope to the absolute limit.
He thrived on risk-taking and was even honest about his mischief. For example, in the late 1960s, Awori, then a high-ranking official in the Uganda Government, travelled by road to Nairobi to attend major athletic events at the Kenya Institute of Administration (now called the Kenya Government School of Management) in Lower Kabete. He was the sole driver of his sleek, two-tone grey-coloured BMW sedan.
After crossing into Kenya, Awori was stopped at a police roadblock. Asked what he had in the trunk (boot) of his car, he told the police that he was carrying a lot of ivory. The Kenyan policemen laughed at the joke and did not ask him to open the trunk. They waved him on and wished him a safe journey to Nairobi.
On arrival at Kabete, Awori opened the trunk and showed his relatives dozens of oranges he was carrying. Underneath the oranges was a pile of ivory which was worth a handsome return. We do not know how much money he made from the sale of the ivory. What his relatives know is that he spent some of the money funding his impeccable taste for the finer things in life and a significant amount on helping people in need.
Awori was a very kind man with a big heart. One of his relatives recalls Uncle Aggrey’s financial generosity when said relative was a student in the USA. Another relative said that Awori was a man who saw money as a tool for living, not a goal in life. As such he was not an accumulator. He has probably not left a fortune stashed away in some foreign banks.
Not that he lacked the means or opportunities to make a lot of money. He was an internationally well-connected man, gifted with charm and excellent public relations skills, and the DNA to succeed in commerce and investment. He was an Awori after all, the twelfth of seventeen brothers and sisters who were very high achievers.
When we visited him at his home in Kibimba in January 2014, I was struck by the modesty of his home and the silence around his homestead. It was a place where he must have enjoyed solitude, productive reflection and, one suspects, plotting his next move. “He was always busy planning and plotting actions that ordinary mortals would never have thought of,” a relative told me.
His Porsche sports car was parked on the verandah, its engine exposed because he was doing a few repairs on it. To me, this German-made car, a prized one among car-enthusiasts, seemed to be misplaced in a rural setting. Awori quickly disabused me of the idea, pointing out that it was the perfect aide to ferry him on his leisurely cruises up and down the beautifully tarmacked Jinja-Tororo highway.
We talked politics, of course. His political journey, fascinating as it was, must await scholarly study and analysis. However, I still chuckle at what he told me in 2010 when he was serving as a Minister of Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance in the government of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
He had served in the governments of Apollo Milton Obote, and had been a passionate opponent of Museveni’s politics and government. He had spent years on the opposition benches railing against the democratic deficit and corruption under Museveni. Now here he was, in-charge of the propaganda ministry of the same regime.
After reminding him that Milton Obote’s governments had been undemocratic, complete with a stolen election in 1980, I asked him what business he had serving another undemocratic regime that he had, at one time, allegedly considered removing by force. “Oh, but I am perfectly suited to serve in Museveni’s government,” Awori said with a smile. “You set a thief to catch a thief, remember?” We laughed heartily and promptly changed the subject.
That wit and subtle self-deprecation were part of Awori’s persona, indicators of a man who was psychologically secure, one who saw life as serious business but did not take himself too seriously. To his large family in Uganda and Kenya, my condolences as we celebrate the life of a man who loved and thoroughly enjoyed life without apologies. He lived. Yes, he really lived!