I first met Joseph Tamale Mirundi in the year 2000 in Masaka town (now city) when he waved us for a lift to Kyotera.
He was young and looked abnormally tall with a fake smile. I had just returned from South Africa with a brand new BMW 325i which had a special enhanced audio system.
I was with my father who had just instructed me to play the music so loud and let all the windows open. I think there was a throng of bodaboda riders following us which increased my father’s happiness.
Tamale was let in into this noise and he sat quietly looking outside. I don’t think he enjoyed the ride though my father would have preferred it even louder.
Amid the noise, he fought to tell us that he was campaigning to become our area MP and my father reached and reduced the music. He had asked him about his parents and why he wanted to be a politician.
I can’t recall whether Tamale Mirundi supported Yoweri Museveni then who was, for the first time, facing a formidable challenger called Dr. Kizza Besigye.
But he was eloquent and he knew his trade very well.
He told my father that he wanted to join politics “in order to change the lives of my people.”
“Which people?” My father had roared.
The he launched into a lengthy lecture which left Tamale Mirundi completely smitten.
My father, who had supported UPC since the 1960s and in the 1980s, was now a diehard supporter of candidate Yoweri Museveni.
This is what he told Tamale Mirundi:
“My son, never join politics if your intentions are to improve the lives of your people!” This surprised all us and I asked my old man what then would people join politics for?
“People join politics to improve their own lives (to make money) that is all,” he said and increased the music volume.
When we reached Kyotera town, my father increased the music and asked me to drive slowly. There was something very special the music made my old man to remember, but he never told me what it was.
“My son,” now addressing Tamale Mirundi, “never be against a government in power!”
In the 2001 elections, my siblings wheeled (bamuteka mukigali) our dying father to vote for the last time. After casting his vote he said: “I live Uganda in good hands!” (My old man past away thereafter and I was told that Tamale Mirundi attended the funeral as I shall attend his at Kalagala Kyotera).
In Kyotera, father had waved Tamale goodbye and asked him to say hello to his father (he was his friend and a distant relative because of our similar Nkima clan) and also invited him to come and campaign at our farm. We had many family members and servants.
Tamale Mirundi breathed his last a few days ago; gone and never to be seen anywhere else.
I remember reading somewhere, was it the cartoon character called ‘Ekanya’ who told his often confused wife that: “I don’t fear to die. I fear not coming back!”
That, friends, is also what I fear. Your relative or friend passes away and you will NEVER meet them again? Why did God make such an abhorrent arrangement with Prophet Adam? Why wouldn’t He make us stay here endlessly and perhaps increase the world in size if the numbers had become unsustainable?
He is God afterall!
We all know that Joseph Tamale Mirundi was a special- gisted person who would have earned a Doctor of Letters because of his proficiency in the Luganda language. He would have earned another PhD in commonsense and then another in psychology.
I heard that a journalist Tamale Mirundi was fond of asking President Museveni hard questions that one day a visibly annoyed Museveni asked him:
“Youngman, you ask so many questions. Why don’t you join me on my next trip abroad you see for yourself?”
Tamale Mirundi was always tempted to ‘fight’ President Museveni but often remembering my father’s warning of NEVER to fight a government in power!
He supported President Museveni not because he wanted money; he supported President Museveni because it was the right thing to do. He became an adult when President Museveni was in power; lived through 40 years of his rulership and he died an old man of 64 years!
Yes he supported President Museveni because he, Tamale, was an intelligent man. That is what intelligent people. You analyse the situation and choose the best alternative. You don’t simply follow the flow as if you’re a leaf on river water.
In 2004, when no Ugandan even knew this, Tamale wrote in the Daily Monitor that “President Museveni will rule Uganda until 2016!” I think he believed and rightly so that 2016 would be the right time for the son of Kaguta to call it quits.
And I have it on good authority (tekurinfufu) that President Museveni was also supposed to give up the president in 2016 and pass the mantle of stewardship to his longtime comrade John Patrick Amama Mbabazi with whom they had built the NRM all the way from FRONASA in the 1970s
Be that as it were, Tamale Mirundi became uneasy when Mr. Museveni did not quit in 2016 and started talking in tongues. He was hurt because of this blatant failure and he quickly became unruly and incoherent. It was after that apparent failure that he started drinking very heavily.
A few month before his death, Tamale Mirundi had embraced Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba (MK)- the President’s son and heir apparent – as a senior advisor. He had also retained his position as a Senior Presidential Advisor on the media a tittle which gave him a respectable salary and other fringe benefits.
Unlike most Ugandans, Tamale Mirundi had studied President Museveni and knew his intentions and purposes. He was bitter that things were not going right but knew from deep down in his heart that Uganda still needed Mr. Museveni.
He once told me that if he passes away and President Museveni after that, Uganda will take another 20 years to get anyone closer to their knowledge and thinking. And I believed him wholeheartedly.
And yet he was also bitter.
Tamale failed to understand why President Museveni never appointed him a minister with his capacity the appointing authority knew too well. He was not happy with the wastage in government and had a thing or two to pick with some of President Museveni’s close relatives and advisors.
Yes he supported President Museveni to the hilt but never supported the NRM party. He saw the party as being led by arrogant people who could not even win an LC1 election if President Yoweri Museveni was not around.
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:
We should all join our hands to celebrate the passing of an extraordinary Ugandan. He said many things and his words and sentences are quotable.
One of my most favourable quote is when he said:
“The only people left holding plates at a funeral or wedding, are those who haven’t eaten!”
And he spoke in parables like Jesus and died with his cross on.
He once said that:
“If you visit me and you talk nonsense infront of my kids; I will order the servants to take you through the backdoor!”
And this:
“If you meet a man with unpolished shoes on the street, run away. He has no money for lunch!”
We all have our favourite quotes of Tamale Mirundi who is gone never to be seen anywhere else. He loved Uganda and breathed his last thinking of Uganda.
MAY HIS SOUL REST IN ETERNAL PEACE!
LAST WORD: Joseph Tamale Mirundi should be offered a State Funeral for his services to this country.
Adam kamulegeya
adamkam2003@gmail.com
0779 104 336
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