The relative with a winning combination of kindness, power, and honesty,
Dr. Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, rest in power.
By
Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma
‘I have learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’
Maya Angelou, Black American writer, and poet (among other things).
In life, many people cross your path, some you remember, others you don’t, and a few leave an impression on you. Dr. Paul Ssemogerere, a relative, my uncle, left a huge impression on me. But it is the way he did it, how I watched him interact with people, especially when I was a child, and how he lived his life, that stands out.
It is important to start by elaborating on the family connection. My Dad’s eldest sister (Maria Namatovu Ssemakula) was married to Paul Ssemogerere’s elder brother, Phillip Ssemakula. When my Aunt Maria’s husband was murdered (long before I was born), while on his way home from a teaching job, Dr. Ssemogerere became his heir.
As a young child going to boarding primary school in Uganda, my interactions with Mr. Ssemogerere were few but memorable. My dad, mum and my siblings, used to visit my Aunt Maria often at her home in Nkumba, off Entebbe Road. We lived in various places on Entebbe Road over the years, (Nnajjanankumbi, Kisubi and Kajjansi), so Nkumba was never far away. When we visited, we usually spent the entire day at my aunt’s. My parents would sit in the house, catch-up and reminisce with my Aunt Maria. As young children, my siblings and I would play until our hearts’ content. Sometimes during school holidays, I would spend a week or two at my Aunt Maria’s. I enjoyed spending time at Nkumba, a very rural village then, but everything seemed interesting to me. My Aunt didn’t have any children of her own, as the first born of her only brother, I felt dotted on. I loved spending time with her, gardening, visiting her neighbours and learning about village life. Whenever, Uncle Ssemogerere was around, he wasn’t around much (busy doing political work), I would travel with him in his car, visiting people, attending meetings, and nearly stopping to say hullo to everyone we met on the way. It didn’t seem unusual to me at all.
What I remember is he seemed to know everyone, not just by face but also by name. He always drove his own car; he had no driver and no entourage. Most times I was with him, it was just me and him riding around in his car, sometimes coming home at night from meetings that lasted longer than they should have, with me singing and him humming, trying to navigate unlit village roads which were barely there, but still trying to pay attention to me. As a child, I felt that my views mattered because he listened, he was so attentive and sometimes even asked me questions, either to clarify what I had said or what I thought about what he may have said to me or heard him say at a meeting. He retained an amazing amount of information and was very gentle. Those are my memories of him when I was young.
I remember one time Uncle Ssemogerere was driving to one of his political meetings, in his white Peugeot car he had at the time. On this day, he took me with him. I must have been about 10 years of age (or younger), and I was seated in the front passenger seat, an honour, and a joy for a child my age. He was driving along the main Entebbe Road on a Sunday evening at about 4pm, when we had a puncture on one of the back tyres of the car. My uncle didn’t panic, he stopped by the side of the road and asked me stay in the car while he checked the extent of the damage to the tyre. After a few moments, he came back to the driver’s seat and told me that he was going to drive slowly to a safer place where there was more space for him to fix the tyre.
In those days, there were no mobile phones. What people normally did was go out in the community, knock on doors, and get some help. Fortunately, Entebbe Road being a main road with back-and-forth traffic from the main international airport in Entebbe and Kampala City, the capital, we were likely to get help. My uncle went and knocked on one of the small houses nearby to get some help, and he was instantly recognised. It seemed like a few people just dropped what they were doing and about ten people showed up with him. Word went around as it does in small communities, and soon enough there were more people than we needed to change a tyre. It looked more like an impromptu small political rally. Before we knew it, traffic had come to a near grinding halt on Entebbe Road. My uncle told me to stay in the car, which was a good idea, because the crowd kept growing. I watched what could have been a mini hardship for us with fascination from the front seat of the car, as people in the village started to arrive with bunches of matooke (bananas), live chickens and all sorts of food, which my uncle could not refuse for fear of insulting anyone, while others finished sorting out the puncture. It wasn’t the first or the last time I witnessed something of this nature. Being out with my uncle was always a bit of an adventure, he had a good effect on people. As a child, it was a lot of excitement for me, but nothing I shared in any detail until now.
I got used to people reacting to my uncle the way they did. But he was somebody who didn’t want to be fussed over. He was always polite and patient, wanted to know the names of people greeting him, where they lived, what they did, just so he would connect them to other people, resources they needed, organisations they didn’t release existed. He was one amazing networker!
As in-laws, my dad & Uncle Ssemogerere were close. They were men of a certain age, with a similar temperament, they bonded over religion, their love for education and the family relationship. My uncle visited us a few times whenever he was in the country (and had time), he attended some significant events in our families’ lives and was at my both my parents’ funerals and last funeral rites. If I remember correctly, he was godfather to my last-born brother!
As a well-known politician most of his life, he encountered so many people and travelled a fair bit. There was a time he spent years in the US studying as well as raising his own family until he decided that he wanted to return to Uganda. While I won’t get into the politics of Uganda as a country, he earned his place as leader whose feet remained firmly on the ground. He was kind, honest and revelled in the fact that he was able to live as an ordinary citizen of his country. As ordinary as an ex-politician’s life can be.
The last time I visited him at his residence in Rubaga, I was with one of my nieces. We visited for over two hours. Looking at, as well as listening to him, it was difficult to believe that he was 89 years old! His mind was still razor sharp and he looked like he could be in his 60s! Talk about Black don’t crack! Except for a stint of being unwell that he told us about, and how grateful he was to receive the best care at Rubaga hospital, he looked really well.
One of the things he said to me during our conversations that day was – ‘Your Dad spoilt you, but fortunately, in a good way.’ I could have asked him to expand on it, but I felt that I understood what he meant and embraced it as a compliment. It was not the first time I had, heard that sentence from a relative!
He was proud of the things I was telling him I was doing. We talked about a lot of things and exchanged numbers, as we were really reconnecting after a significant period. Given I don’t spend as much time in Uganda as I would like to. We talked a few times over the phone after that, with him wanting to connect me to different people and to projects that some of his children are involved in. He was surprised to learn that most of the things he was wanting me to know, I was already aware of. He never stopped networking, a skill I think he strengthened when he lived in the US. I say this because I went to university in the USA, and I really appreciate networking. Best skill I picked up during my stay in the country.
As I left his home the day, I last saw him, we took a photo, and he escorted us to our car and opened the gate for us. I tried to go ahead of him to help him open the gate and he went, ‘Don’t you worry. You have no idea how much I love doing this myself.’
He was completely grounded and had no airs about him. I loved him and I miss him. He did so much for his country, it is up to those of us he impacted in so many ways, to carry on his legacy. Rest in power.
