Due to public demand, here is the complete list of the great men and women we lost in 2022.
Charles Njonjo (January 23, 1920 - January 2, 2022)
Most famously Kenya’s Attorney General 1963 to 1979, Charles Njonjo oversaw Kenya’s transition from the leadership of legendary father of the nation Jomo Kenyatta to his vice president Daniel Arap Moi. A proud man who was educated in England, taking to the bar, Njonjo was just as known for his sharp sense of style. He always ensured he appeared in public dressed in the latest suit styles from Saville row. He was also one of Kenya’s richest men.
Richard Leakey (December 19, 1944 - January 2, 2022)
One of the world’s most famous paleonthropologists, a progeny of Louis and Mary Leakey, Richard would live several public careers in Kenya that still affect their fields. Starting out in archeology, Richard would rally support for wildlife conservation as Kenya’s diverse nature was destroyed by development and encroachers, playing a crucial role in the formation of the Kenya Wildlife Service, founded an NGO WildlifeDirect and raised the profile of the National Museum of Kenya, as well bringing in invaluable endowments for research and preservation.
Christopher Sembuya (1935- January 11, 2022)
A prominent Ugandan businessman credited with playing a key role in the recovery of the economy in the 1980s and 1990s, Christopher Sembuya co-founded Sembule Steel Mills. Sembuya is lauded for inspiring native Ugandan entrepreneurs with his various businesses that eventually saw the production of a Ugandan made radio popularly called Makula. Sembuya’s Sembule Electronics Ltd manufactured radio and television sets, telephone sets and other essential electronics at his Nalukolongo industrial complex in Kampala. He was an all round businessman with interests in manufacturing, insurance, real estate and banking at one time.
Dr Christopher Ndugwa (1940- January 21, 2022)
Expert paediatrician and Child Health advocate, Dr Ndugwa distinguished himself in the care and treatment of Sickle Cell sufferers. He ran the Mulago Hospital Sickle Cell clinic for decades. He served for over 40-years at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences where many of the best doctors in the region enjoyed his tutelage. He would rise to head the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health there. Later in his career, he carved another lane for himself as a committed advocate for prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) and paediatric HIV treatment.
Dr. Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile (January 27, 1949 - January 23, 2022)
Considered the architect of Uganda’s economic recovery after 1986, Dr. Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile was Bank of Uganda’s longest serving governor until his death. President Museveni credited Mutebile with convincing him to turn to capitalism and economic measures like privatisation to jolt the Ugandan economy into life after a protracted civil war that consumed Uganda from 1979 to 1986.
Fr. Simon Lokodo (October 28, 1957 - January 29, 2022)
Uganda’s former ethics minister, an indefatigable opponent of LGBTQ rights, the defrocked priest was a fearless “defender” of African values until his dying day. He attracted the wrath of Ugandan feminists when he called for a mini skirt ban to “promote decency.” He was also an outspoken opponent of pornography, blaming it for the moral decay he saw everywhere in Uganda.
Hajji Haroun Muwonge ( -February 5, 2022)
A longtime mainstay of Kampala party life, Muwonge was the supplier of the equipment that made every function all the better for the “bidongo” through his Ham Sounds company. He was a close associate of Charlie Lubega and worked at his Guvnor nightclub, in addition to running his own company.
Emorimor Papa Augustine Osuban Lemukol (1934-February 5, 2022)
A figure of peace and unity in Teso, Emorimor Papa Augustine Osuban Lemukol’s death once called into question the survival of the cultural institution whose head he had been 2000. After protracted negotiations, this was resolved in October 2022 when Paul Sande Emolot Etomeileng was installed as his successor. The late Emorimor was one of the last public figures to succumb to COVID-19 in the country.
Jacob L'Okori Oulanyah (March 23, 1965 - March 20, 2022)
Speaker of the 11th parliament for 11 months, Oulanyah was one of the most consequential political leaders in Uganda in the last three years of his life. His ascension to speakership in May 2021 saw the fall from power of Busoga strongwoman and former speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who had once seemed a potential candidate for president. His popularity in Omoro and the north is believed to have helped the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) regain political favour there in the 2021 general election. His abrupt death saw the coming into office of Uganda’s second female speaker Anitah Among who was expected to have a ten year internship under Oulanyah. Oulanyah’s death also brought to the fore the ugly spectre of tribalism that lurks underneath the surface of Ugandan politics and life as northern members of parliament accused MPs from central Uganda of not wanting their own to receive adequate medical care, as Oulanyah did in Seattle, USA, where he died. His unexpected absence from the political scene has probably altered the trajectory of Ugandan history 2022 and beyond in ways we are yet to appreciate.
Shem Sitakange Semambo (February 1, 1972- March 21, 2022)
One of Uganda’s best marketing brains, Shem Semambo aka Kagusunda played an important part in the association drinks companies have with the entertainment industry. Through his zealous promotion of Club Pilsner beer, Semambo led the way in marketeers appreciating the importance of the endorsement they received from especially musicians and popular society figures. After a brilliant career in the 2000s, Semambo had retreated from the limelight at the time of his death from the rare and agonising transverse myelitis. He was an educationist at the time of his death.
Mwai Kibaki (November 15, 1931 - April 21, 2022)
Third president of Kenya, Kibaki broke the stranglehold that Daniel Arap Moi, the “professor of politics” had had for nearly four decades on that country. At great personal risk, Kibaki turned on his former master (he was Moi’s vice president for ten years) to contest and win the 2002 election. Kibaki’s tenure helped return Kenya to the international scene where it had been a pariah in the last years of Moi’s presidency. Kibaki strengthened government institutions during his presidency setting the foundation for the country’s renewed economic growth. His 2013 handover to Uhuru Kenyatta ensured that the country was on the path to orderly and largely peaceful power transfer. Kibaki’s legacy remains tainted by the 2007-2008 clashes over the electoral results that saw hundreds killed and displaced. Every election since has been haunted by the tense events of those months before Kibaki “swore himself” in in a curious night ceremony.
David Kimenye (-May 4, 2022)
One of the many “faceless” but important private FM radio pioneers in Uganda, David Kimenye was associated with Radio One for much of his career where he was one of its best voice over artists. His voice was used in many jingles including the most famous one, “The weather is brought to you by Steel and Tube industries.” Kimenye hailed from legendary parentage as his mother Barbara Kimenye was the author of the Moses books read in schools in the region. Kimenye’s family was close to the Buganda Kingdom royal family. He succumbed to lung cancer.
Professor Rachel Musoke (February 8, 1944 - June 4, 2022)
A Ugandan who flourished in Kenya, Professor Rachel Musoke was the leading neonatologist at Kenyatta Hospital for 40 years until her retirement in 2021. From the time she started her service in 1977, Musoke would play a big role in advancing knowledge on the care for babies with weight and other health challenges. Prof. Musoke was also an accomplished academic with 70 publications in peer reviewed journals, 16 of which were published as a first author. At graduate level, Prof. Musoke supervised 89 Master’s degrees in Paediatrics and Child Health; many of these theses have since been be published and inform public policy in Kenya.
DJ Alex Ndawula (1963-June 6, 2022)
One of the brightest stars of Ugandan radio, DJ Alex Ndawula “Muchachos” more than anyone defined what it was to be a radio personality in the 1990s to mid 2000s. Erudite, witty, sarcastic, with a larger than life personality behind the microphone, many entrants into the profession profess Ndawula was their idol and example. His Dance Force (every Saturday at 8:00pm till late) and Sundowner (every weekday at 6:00pm to 7:00pm) were must listens as was his stint with Christine Mawadri and Zzinga on the Capital FM's breakfast show. Like his equally talented contemporary Allan ‘The Cantankerous One’ Mugisha, Ndawula’s career and life were as much a lesson of what to emulate as to avoid. He defined Capital FM radio which he served for 23 dedicated years before retiring in 2017. His death in 2022 is all the more poignant as the medium he dominated struggles for survival in the new digital age.
Elly Tumwine (April 12, 1954 - August 25, 2022)
The blunt speaking General who reportedly fired the first bullet in 1981 that launched the five year guerrilla war that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power. A patron of the arts, especially the fine arts, and artist himself, Tumwine had intended to pursue an artistic career in painting and fashion before the call to “liberate Uganda” came and he put down paint brushes to pick up the gun. He was, by the time of his unhappy retirement in 2021, calling on his hero and commander-in-chief Museveni to think of stepping down too. In a life of controversy, none will perhaps dog his legacy more than justification in November 2020 that the armed forces have a right to shoot and kill civilian protestors, if it deems their actions dangerous to public order.
Joseph Semakula Ndugwa (1956-June 9, 2022)
One of the godparents of modern Ugandan theatre, Omugave Ndugwa’s Black Pearls was responsible for nurturing the talents of people like Abby Mukiibi, Kato Lubwama, Mariam Ndagire, Ashraf Ssimwogerere, Jalia Walusimbi, Betty Tebategeera, Bob Fred Mpiima and Jolly Lulibe. A prolific writer, Ndugwa was authoring plays from 1972 like Obulamu bwa Ssembirige to popular hits in the 1980s like Ekimuli mu Maggwa I & II (1989). Towards the end of his active playwriting career, largely self-taught, Ndugwa was also writing film scripts like The Love Collision (2011). The collapse of his very popular Riverside Theatre forced this national treasure to seek work abroad as a nurse in the US where he died at 66. His consolation was that his beloved Buganda Kingdom had never forgotten him and continued to honour him with ambassadorial titles until his death.
Yona Kanyomozi (June 29, 1940 - August 28, 2022)
Widely considered one of the few Ugandan politicians with principles he would not compromise, Yona Kanyomozi was able to serve in every government from 1981 to 2006 despite being opposed to some of the policies. A Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) diehard, Kanyomozi had another distinction of being close to that party’s founder and president Dr. Milton Obote and and teaching a future president Yoweri Museveni mathematics in the 1960s. While in the Obote government in the 1980s as Cooperatives minister, Kanyomozi is credited with ensuring a wounded Mugisha Muntu who had been shot in the stomach received life saving treatment at Mulago hospital despite the fact that he was a rebel in Museveni’s National Resistance Army outfit.
Jakana Nadduli ( 1985- October 23, 2022)
The unexpected death of Jakana Nadduli, the son of a legendary Bush War veteran Hajji Abdul Nadduli, broke upon Ugandans as yet another manifestation of the old adage that a revolution will eventually devour its children. As outspoken as his father, Jakana had made a quick name for himself criticising the excesses of the NRM party his father had held high positions in before his August 2021 retirement. The death of Jakana, after allegations of being tortured in state custody, seems to have turned his elderly but influential and still fiercely eloquent father against the government he fought to bring into power. It may also be a harbinger of permanent cracks within the Movement among its leaders over the future of the party and country.
Ahmed Kashillingi (1940 - November 3, 2022)
The Lt Colonel who should have been a general will probably be Ahmed Kashillingi’s historical epitaph. One of the undisputed heroes of the five year Bush War that saw the NRA rebels shoot their way to power, Kashillingi was one of its stars. A trained soldier who turned many raw recruits into daring commandos, for reasons never fully revealed, Kashillingi fell out with the leaders of the NRA and Museveni, who he personally rescued in battle in Masindi, and lived neglected thereafter. Like his contemporary Brigadier Tadeo Kanyakore, by the time he died at 82, Kashillingi had come to symbolise the many who bled for the revolution but were speedily forgotten by it.
Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere (February 11, 1932 - November 18, 2022)
The man whose stolen 1980 election inspired a rebellion that toppled the Dr Milton Obote government, Ssemogerere was at the centre of Ugandan politics for over 40 years until his death at 90, sometimes it seemed reluctantly. Before that historical burden, Ssemogerere had to step into very large shoes by succeeding the charismatic founder of the Democratic Party Benedicto Kiwanuka after his 1972 murder and keep that party alive. Keeping DP relevant through the Idi Amin and Obote presidencies seemed a walk in the park in hindsight as he struggled for the return of multiparty democracy after 1986. In the end, Ssemogerere’s political career remains a sad reminder of “What could have been” not just for himself but Uganda at large.
His son Paul Joseph Ssemakula, in whom he had expressed a lot of hope, would shockingly die a month later on December 21.
Other notables who passed away in 2022
Doreen Katusiime Mweheire (1985- October 3, 2022)
Next Media Service’s first Chief of Staff, Doreen Katusiime Mweheire was described by her boss and friend Kin Kariisa as one of the people he trusted the most and could rely on. She was an early employee in the nascent NBS TV and rose through the ranks from production to overseeing staff that worked under the Next Media umbrella of companies.
Allan Gerald Kanyike (August 2, 1963- December 22, 2022)
Former diaspora worker and Kampala socialite whose love of dance and live band music earned him the nickname of “Dynamite,” Kanyike was a fixture of nightlife in the city for the last decade or so. A retired businessman, Kanyike was beloved by performers and revellers for his friendliness and willingness to get up and dance at the drop of a hat.
Musa Sewava (August 12 1962 - December 22, 2022)
Proprietor and director of the Sir Apollo Kaggwa chain of schools, a low key giant in the field of education who was deeply religious.
John Mitala (1948- December 24, 2022)
Uganda’s longest serving head of the Public Service (19 years) and secretary to the cabinet until his 2021 retirement, Mitala played an important role in the vetting of government workers. As Permanent Secretary, his approval was needed before they were formally hired into the civil service.