AT HOME, WE ARE ANTICIPATING YOUR RETURN
Hello;
You may not remember me. I am the lad who met you after
late Bernard Onyango’s requiem mass at St Augustine Catholic Community Makerere
University in October 2013. It was a valuable prospect to get a hand shake from
you. What I can remember is, after my brief foreword, you reply was, ‘thank
you’.
Subsequently, I stared at you from a distance (near Main
Building) as you chatted with someone while leaning on St Augustine church
wall. For about thirty minutes, I thought about nothing else but you. It was
until when you departed that I also regained my conscience and then remembered
that I was supposed to be in a lecture.
Coupled with personal predicament that had kept me off
from focusing on academics since that semester began, I gained momentum and
made you-turn. Whether false or true, fortitude has been pushing me to think
that I could become a maverick journalist like you in future.
I do read all you columns from Ear to the Ground, Daily
Monitor (Wednesday) to Daily Nation (Thursday) and finally East African
(Sunday). I trail your commentaries even to your WordPress blog ‘Naked Chefs’
and sometimes to The Citizen-website ‘What Others Say’ but this is always the
same as your Daily Nation’s opinion.
What I have found
peculiar in all your columns, you use simple English. I have learnt a lot from
these different your views in forms of commentaries to continually develop my writing
skills using this blog.
It is because of you and other worthy to follow journalist
like Kalinaki that am still a vibrant twitter user since you’re not facebook
fans. For example I don’t need to check Mwenda’s twitter account regularly
since I can easily access his posts on facebook.
I recently came to know that you even mentored Andrew
Mwenda-Old Man of the Clan, one of the most celebrated journalists in Uganda.
In an impromptu to the Independent Magazine Head Offices in Kamwokya about a month
ago, I found that your portrait and that of Waf are pinned higher among those who
inspired him. I think am not off beam if I judge from Andrew that you and Waf are/were
good teacher who will always be
remembered.
However, I am curious about the following queries
1. You’re coming back home when?. If I have known you for
about two years but already enquiring about your return, then what about those
who knew you before departing in 2003. I am I the first friend to ask you this
question?.
2. Is it true your exiled in Kenya?. In his commentary, ‘if
the Scots are a nation, why are Baganda, Dinka and Nuer just tribes’ mid January
this year, Daniel Kalinaki while
engraving experience after burial of
your father, he had this introductory paragraph.
At the weekend we travelled to Tororo to pay our last
respect to Martin Obbo, father to, among others, Charles Onyango-Obbo. COO, as
many know, made his name sowing mischief as editor of this newspaper (Daily
Monitor) and continues to do from his Nairobi ‘exile’. What prompted Daniel to
place the word exile under inverted commas?.
3. According to Wikipedia, you appeared
in court over 120 times between 1997 and mid-2003; more than the combined
number of times Ugandan journalists had been in court since the country's
independence in October 1962. Is it accurate or exaggerated?. Then, how many times have you been
incarcerated?. What is the difference between those days of late 1990s and
early 2000s and today in relation to persecution of journalist?
4. Generally how has media freedom in East African varied since
you joined journalism?. From a cognizant point of view, Is it destined to a
prosperous future or doom?.
5. How is life in Kenya?. Have you ever been arrested or
summoned to court in relation to your Journalistic work?
6. How often do you visit Uganda?, Do you feel safe at
home?
I am looking forward to meet you again in the future. All the best
From
John
Blanshe Musinguzi
An
undergraduate Journalism and Communication student at Makerere Universuty
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