By our reporter
Sad information reaching our desk indicates that veteran UPDF soldier Sgt (rtd) Stanley Sempagala, aka Sgt Kifulugunyu has passed on.
Sgt Kifulugunyu is much remembered by the public as a songster who couldn’t leave without his guitar.
He was a flamboyant soldier, a guitarist and singer who took the music scene by storm and also rocked UTV in the late 90s with his distinctive music and dancing strokes.
After the 1979 war which saw former President Idd Amin dethroned, Kifulugunyu like all former Uganda army soldiers was imprisoned. But in 1980, he managed to escape with other ex-servicemen from Upper Maximum Security Prison, Luzira.
According to Daily Monitor, for three years, he hid in Mubende District until 1984 when a one Kasinzi took him to the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebels. But on the day he arrived in the bush, Kifulugunyu was arrested. This was after he said he had been in the UA but had escaped from jail.
“They couldn’t believe my story. They thought I was a spy. And I was detained in a trench for two days. With my guitar, I started singing for the prisoners.” After two days, I was set free and made the OC Morale. I liked the title.
I started calling myself OC “omuraaro”. My major role in the bush was to entertain fighters,” Kifulugunyu says.
One of his best compositions is the morale boost song “Omoto nawaka” one of the famous NRA rebel songs. In 2008, at the rank of Warrant Officer Class I (WOI), obtained in 1973, Kifulugunyu was retired from the national army after 44 years of soldiering.
May his Soul Rest In Peace.
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