“Good evening. The news, read to you by Justus Tindyebwa.” The baritone voice. The handsome face. The confident smile. The English diction. An accent, very authentic, natural and unforced. His trademark, shared with other English news anchors on Radio Uganda and Uganda Television during my youth. Among them, Ben Kanyangyeyo, George Bisobolwa, Cosima Warugaba, Tucker Lwanga, John Johnson Kibajjo, and Charles Byekwaso. Theirs remains the standard against which I judge their professional successors. 

Justus Tumusiime Tindyebwa, who turns eighty on Saturday November 30, is one of the two living African-Ugandan pioneers of broadcast journalism. And he is still at it. His baritone voice undiminished, his accent and elocution still very easy on the ear. His recall of history as sharp as his command of current affairs. His remarkable career, now 57 years and counting, very much alive and well. Teaching a new cadre of journalists as a professional in-house trainer at the Voice of Kigezi in Kabale. Professional ethics his major focus.

Tumusiime wa Tindyebwa wa Nyaishaija ya Masaza ga Rwanga rwa Mpambara wa Rugaaju is a Mugyeyo of Abamugyesera clan of Abakiga ba Kigyezi. His mother, Joyce Kantamu muhara wa Rwambibi of Nyarurambi, Rwamucuucu, Rukiga, a daughter of Abamusigi clan of Abakiga, was a farmer. His father, Yokaana Rwakitwe Tindyebwa of Kizinga, Maziba, Kigyezi, was a medical nursing orderly. 

He was born at Nyamishaki near Kizinga Primary School on November 30, 1944, the third in what would become a team of eight children. He started formal education in primary one at Kizinga Primary School in 1954. This school was built on a large piece of land that was donated by his father to the Native Anglican Church of Uganda. He stayed at Kizinga Primary School for five years, before transferring to Kantare Primary School in Rukiga County, where he completed primary six in 1959. He spent that year with his father, who was working at Kisiizi Hospital, 6 km from his school. He walked to and from school five days a week, his shoeless feet propelling him towards a future of success that came with formal western education. 

He was admitted to Kigezi High School for junior secondary education in 1960, where he served as the school librarian. One of his classmates recalls that Tindyebwa spoke English very well even at that stage. He joined Busoga College, Mwiri, on a National King George V Scholarship in 1962. This annual scholarship was awarded to the best 20 students in the country’s junior secondary school leaving examinations.

The still shoeless lad from Kizinga continued his excellent academic performance. However, he was suspended from Mwiri during his third year, accused of having led the students’ strike that paralyzed the school in 1964. It was the first of multiple personal encounters with injustice that would dot his life. He returned to Mwiri and completed his O-Level education at the end of 1965.

Tindyebwa became a licensed teacher at Kebisooni Integrated Primary School in Rujumbura County, Kigyezi in 1966 and taught there for nearly two years. One of his students was Jim Muhwezi wa Katuguugu, a future soldier, politician, and cabinet minister in the central government of Uganda. It was at Kebisooni that Tindyebwa made a consequential choice that shaped the rest of his professional life. He answered an advertisement in the Uganda Argus that sought broadcasters and announcers in English for Radio Uganda. 

On October 2, 1967, Tindyebwa, one of ten applicants, was interviewed by Ben Kanyangyeyo, the head of programs and training, who had worked at the British Broadcasting Corporation’s African Service for two years. Tindyebwa was one of only two successful candidates.  Kanyangyeyo informed him that he had a very good voice and excellent pronunciation. Kanyangyeyo trained his recruit in public speaking and reading news in English. He then assigned him the role of news reader after two months, and Tindyebwa immediately made a very good impression on his listeners. An opinion leader in the Uganda Argus voted him a new star. 

In addition to reading news in English on Uganda’s only radio and television networks, Tindyebwa was a continuity announcer, telling us which channel we were listening to or watching, and what was coming next. He produced and aired the Morning Show, a popular weekday music program. He was a live commentator on the band music that wafted from Susanna, White Nile, and New Life, Kampala’s popular night clubs that were in Nakulabye, Kibuye, and Mengo, respectively. 

Tindyebwa was also a political commentator, a risky engagement where a well-intended but misunderstood word could land one in serious trouble. He was behind the microphone during the series of policy announcements by President Milton Obote in his “Move to the Left Strategy” that dominated the political discourse in 1969 and 1970. 

When Obote was shot at Lugogo Stadium on December 19, 1969, Tindyebwa was on duty as a continuity announcer that night. The programs were abruptly interrupted. Tindyebwa and his colleagues, unaware of what had just happened, were told to play instrumental music. The country learnt of the assassination attempt many hours after it had happened. 

When Brigadier Pierino Okoya and his wife were assassinated at their home in Layibi, near Gulu a month later, it was clear that Uganda was rapidly hurtling towards a catastrophe that Tindyebwa would witness from the vantage point of a journalist. He became a victim of multiple threats, personal encounters with injustice, including arrests on false charges, an acute fear-induced psychotic breakdown on live television, and near-death experiences. He even quit his job in 1974 but was persuaded to resume work after he was granted transfer to the safety his hometown of Kabale. 

He returned to Kampala in 1978, to study for a diploma in journalism at the Institute of Public Administration. He resumed part-time news reading on radio and television, just in time for the next great crisis that culminated in the Uganda-Tanzania war that ended Idi Amin's reign. Tindyebwa was ordered to read Lt. Col. Oyite Ojok’s declaration of the fall of Field Marshall Idi Amin’s government on April 11, 1979. He stayed in the Radio Uganda building for two weeks, sleeping on the floor and eating tinned meat supplied by the Tanzania People’s Defence Force. 

Space does not allow a full account of Tindyebwa’s venturesome journey. Our purpose today is to honour him and celebrate his life of great accomplishments, and his arrival at the landmark age of eighty, healthy, energetic, intellectually sharp, and still giving of himself with excellence. It is a journey that he has shared with his wife Beatrice muhara wa Katimba, whom he first met in 1961 and married in 1973. The two have given life to seven children and have nurtured and mentored many more. Age is truly a number. Tindyebwa’s vigour and intellectual curiosity inspire us as we walk in his footsteps. 

© Muniini K. Mulera