Photo: Kikungiri Primary School graduates who joined Junior 1 (Grade 7) at Kigezi High School in January 1962.
Front: L to R - Geoffrey Dutki (forester), Kagambirwe (cobbler), Shaka Ssali (journalist).
Back: L to R - Francis Tusingwire (veterinary doctor), Alfred Nyesigire (teacher), Migisha (teacher), William Turyamureeba (teacher).
Photographer: Unknown
Date: 1962
Shaka Ssali is dead. His remains will be cremated this week. His ashes will return to the rivers and soils of Earth. Everything will be kept simple, for that was his wish. He lived a simple life, but his huge legacy will continue to inspire millions all over the world who mourn him as much as do his Abatimbo ba Igabiro clansmen in Kigyezi.
Our final conversation, hours before his death, was mostly a trip through memory lane, about our exploits as carefree youths in Kabaare, and memories of our compatriots, most of them dead. His encyclopedic memory was intact to the end and reminded me of long forgotten details about events and people that shaped our lives. It was Shaka’s farewell appreciation of all who contributed to his formative years.
For me who has been privileged to know and love Shaka like a twin, there is an emptiness within as I sit beneath a dark cloud that may not lift for a considerable time. However, a light shines through the darkness to reveal the path along which we have walked since my first encounter with him.
Before I tell you about his journey, I must do that which was very dear to him. Truth and accuracy in journalism mattered to him. In small matters and big ones, details mattered. So, I must set the record straight. First, I have seen incorrect reports that he died at the age of 71, having been “born in 1953.”
Like many in his generation, his official date of birth was different from his arrival on Earth. Consider that he started primary one at Kikungiri Primary School in 1956, entered Junior One (P7) at Kigezi High School in 1962, and joined the army in 1968. Then do the math. Notwithstanding the erroneous date of birth in his documents, Shaka has died at the age of about 76 years.
Second, I have learnt that some people are asking the Uganda Government to spend money on publicly honouring Shaka Ssali. Such an idea would have received firm dismissal had it been suggested to him. Shaka was very contemptuous of extravagant spending on funerals and memorials in a country that does not spend enough on the healthcare of the living.
Those who wish to honour him would do well to spend the money on supporting the education of financially challenged children in Serere, Teso, or creating a centre of excellence at his beloved Kigezi College, Butobere, supporting the university education of young Ugandan journalists, or holding self-funding memorial lectures or seminars that advance his work and pan-African beliefs. To do otherwise in the name of honouring him is to dishonour him.
Mike Ssali, son of John and Joyce Mushakamba, was an arrow on the soccer and track fields, one of a select group of boys that ruled Kabaare Stadium. I was a small boy in Junior One at Kigezi High School when I first met him. He was a Senior One student at Kigezi College, Butobere. He was a star athlete, wearing cleats, those shoes with pointed things on the soles that were strange to me at the time. He was tall and good looking, doing those short trots and stretches that struck fear in the competitors, and admiration among the spectators. I wanted to be like him, though my athletic talents were severely wanting.
However, Ssali soon became one of those boys whom my father and other elders repeatedly exhorted us to steer clear of. There was general agreement that he was a bad influence, for he was living a life that our parents believed could only lead to disaster.
Bernard Turyagyenda, for that was his childhood name, had been expelled from Kigezi High School Junior in 1963, forced to detour through a less prestigious rural school before making his way back to the mainstream as a secondary school student at Kigezi College, Butobere in 1965. His new name, Mike Ssali, was as unique for a Mukiga as was his daring and defiant spirit in the face of a very rigid culture that allowed little room for childhood independence.
Our elders had heard that Ssali preferred soccer and other athletic pursuits to academic engagements. While his classmates were attending lectures, Ssali would often be a guest in bars across the road from his high school. In our very conservative society, he was considered an outlaw on a self-destructive path. Lucas Korvin, his mathematics teacher, had written on his report card that “at this rate, Ssali will not amount to anything.”
He was expelled from Kigezi College, Butobere in Senior 2, and dropped out of Kololo Secondary School in Kampala in Senior 3. Our restless hero joined the Uganda Army before completing secondary school. This was the last straw for our elders. Ssali was clearly headed for ruin, and they would not allow him to take us down with him. He became the proverbial scarecrow, but that did not stop us from stealthily admiring him.
I had an encounter with him at Kabaare’s White Horse Inn, the best hotel in town at the time. He was dressed in military uniform, his dark green pants and shirt perfectly pressed. His brown shoes with a mirror-like sheen, and his officer’s cap perched on his head confirmed that Second Lieutenant Ssali was a man in a different league. However, this did not erase the myth that the army was for failures, a dead-end that could only lead to ruin.
By the time his military career came to an unscheduled end in 1974, I was a man at university, no longer afraid to speak of him to my parents with admiration, but relieved that he had been freed from the ruinous life of soldiering.
After a short stint in unlicensed cross-border trade, Ssali travelled to Germany in 1975, and earned enough money there to afford an air passage to America, where he landed in New York City on July 4, 1976, in time to help them celebrate 200 years since the Declaration of Independence. The venturesome Kabaare Kid had broken through the cultural chains that had held him hostage.
With the help of Dr. Ezra Suruma, already a veteran of America, whom he credited for a most brotherly welcome and guidance, Ssali embraced his new life, starting from the bottom, doing manual labour jobs to earn his living, with a clear goal of becoming a journalist like Israel Wamala, a Muganda lawyer from Masulita, Busiro, Buganda, who had risen to the top at the BBC in London.
TO BE CONTINUED…
©Muniini K. Mulera