Nabumali can shine again
Nov 08, 2004
ONCE in a while, an individual, a family, a community, a society or a nation encounters a catastrophe so vast in its implications and so absurd in its unreasonableness that only poets have come up with words to give true meaning to its impact.
JOHN WAFULA
ONCE in a while, an individual, a family, a community, a society or a nation encounters a catastrophe so vast in its implications and so absurd in its unreasonableness that only poets have come up with words to give true meaning to its impact.
Allow me, fellow Ugandans and East and Central Africans — for that is the source of Nabumali High School (NHS) alumni — to include the razing to the ground of the school, my school, by a band of school children who did not know what they were doing.
I am a product of NHS, through and through, and I hereby give public testimony of its academic excellence, which was second to none at the time I was a student there, between 1962-1967, its vibrant extra-curricular activities, as well as its moral and Christian orientation.
For various reasons, NHS has slid dramatically down the ladder and the only thing the old NHS had in common with the current one were the buildings which the current students have torched. Academic performance and other indicators of a great school — like old boy and old girl network, maintenance of buildings and other infrastructures, and pre-eminence in games and sports — have long ceased to be associated with the school.
The leadership of a school is the brain and driving force behind all its activities. I was privileged to join the school at the time the headmaster was the late Rev. Canon Bottomley, who requires no introduction among Ugandans and others in the region who attended great schools like Kings College Budo, Gayaza High School, Busoga College Mwiri, Nyakasura College, Sir Samuel Baker, and Ntare High School.
Mr. Wareham, who succeeded him in 1963, was a capable man, but I am sure he would be the first to acknowledge that he could not entirely fill the Canon’s shoes. I left NHS when Wareham was still the headmaster, but acute academic and other problems were reported to me by my children (whom I had insisted they go to the school) and by others during the leadership of some of the subsequent headmasters. NHS began performing consistently worse than other schools with which it had been previously bracketed; buildings and the school compound were run down, the swimming pool and running water disappeared, teachers who were smart, clean and chapel-going began to drink heavily and to look shabby.
While the falling economic conditions nationwide in the 1970s contributed to this decline in standards, other schools with headmasters of national stature and organisational ability enlisted the support of old boys and old girls in Uganda and elsewhere to counteract some of the worst forms of deterioration.
In the early 1980s, the school’s fortunes seemed to change for the better when well-connected old boys like Sam Odaka (1946-51), Bob Elangot 1952-54), the late Oyite Ojok (1960-1963), the late James Kissesi (1958-61 and Masette-Kuuya (1962-1967) took great interest in their school. For obvious reasons, this revival was short-lived and despite the strenuous efforts of others like Mrs Faith Barlow (1936-49), Canon Seth Mungati (1952-58). Darlington Sakwa (1967-72) and Hon. Beatrice Wabudeya (1969-74) the period 1990 to date has seen the school continuing its downward spiral. I have attended several fundraisings for the school during this time, both in Kampala and at the school premises, but the turn-up has been too low and the funds raised too meagre for a school with such an impressive array of old boys, girls and well wishers.
The recent calamitous event, therefore, could not have come at a worse time. But while this debilitating blow may serve to extinguish the remaining hope in our school, it may (and should) as well stir us into taking notice and acting to reverse the years of decline and the recent plunge into despair. This is, therefore, a general call-to-arms to all old boys and old girls and all their spouses, friends and well-wishers to rebuild the school and reconstruct the burnt records.
The success of this endeavour will hinge upon the revival and mobilisation of the old boys’ and old girls’ network, something Budo has perfected. Because Budo introduced HSC classes long before NHS, most NHS students leaving “O†level in 1963 and before, ended up in Budo. But even after HSC was introduced in 1964, a number of them still went to Budo for HSC — like the late James Wapakhabulo (1961-1964) and Justice James Ogoola (1960-1963). Their Nabumaliness is more critical now than ever before.
I will start by calling on my classmates like David Buye (1966-1967), Haji Ganyana Miiro (1966-1967) and Disan Kiwanuka (1962-67) and others who came much later — like Elijah Wante (1968-69) and Macdusman Kabega (1969-70), to respond when the trumpet calls.
The call will be loud and clear enough for other far-flung old boys like Dr. Njoroge Mungai (1941) and John Garang (1946-48) to hear. I called Dr. Mungai in Nairobi to give him the bad news.
Someone else will have to inform John Garang; maybe his classmate Canon Codva Wakiro.
The writer is chief executive officer,
Uganda Clays Limited
ONCE in a while, an individual, a family, a community, a society or a nation encounters a catastrophe so vast in its implications and so absurd in its unreasonableness that only poets have come up with words to give true meaning to its impact.
Allow me, fellow Ugandans and East and Central Africans — for that is the source of Nabumali High School (NHS) alumni — to include the razing to the ground of the school, my school, by a band of school children who did not know what they were doing.
I am a product of NHS, through and through, and I hereby give public testimony of its academic excellence, which was second to none at the time I was a student there, between 1962-1967, its vibrant extra-curricular activities, as well as its moral and Christian orientation.
For various reasons, NHS has slid dramatically down the ladder and the only thing the old NHS had in common with the current one were the buildings which the current students have torched. Academic performance and other indicators of a great school — like old boy and old girl network, maintenance of buildings and other infrastructures, and pre-eminence in games and sports — have long ceased to be associated with the school.
The leadership of a school is the brain and driving force behind all its activities. I was privileged to join the school at the time the headmaster was the late Rev. Canon Bottomley, who requires no introduction among Ugandans and others in the region who attended great schools like Kings College Budo, Gayaza High School, Busoga College Mwiri, Nyakasura College, Sir Samuel Baker, and Ntare High School.
Mr. Wareham, who succeeded him in 1963, was a capable man, but I am sure he would be the first to acknowledge that he could not entirely fill the Canon’s shoes. I left NHS when Wareham was still the headmaster, but acute academic and other problems were reported to me by my children (whom I had insisted they go to the school) and by others during the leadership of some of the subsequent headmasters. NHS began performing consistently worse than other schools with which it had been previously bracketed; buildings and the school compound were run down, the swimming pool and running water disappeared, teachers who were smart, clean and chapel-going began to drink heavily and to look shabby.
While the falling economic conditions nationwide in the 1970s contributed to this decline in standards, other schools with headmasters of national stature and organisational ability enlisted the support of old boys and old girls in Uganda and elsewhere to counteract some of the worst forms of deterioration.
In the early 1980s, the school’s fortunes seemed to change for the better when well-connected old boys like Sam Odaka (1946-51), Bob Elangot 1952-54), the late Oyite Ojok (1960-1963), the late James Kissesi (1958-61 and Masette-Kuuya (1962-1967) took great interest in their school. For obvious reasons, this revival was short-lived and despite the strenuous efforts of others like Mrs Faith Barlow (1936-49), Canon Seth Mungati (1952-58). Darlington Sakwa (1967-72) and Hon. Beatrice Wabudeya (1969-74) the period 1990 to date has seen the school continuing its downward spiral. I have attended several fundraisings for the school during this time, both in Kampala and at the school premises, but the turn-up has been too low and the funds raised too meagre for a school with such an impressive array of old boys, girls and well wishers.
The recent calamitous event, therefore, could not have come at a worse time. But while this debilitating blow may serve to extinguish the remaining hope in our school, it may (and should) as well stir us into taking notice and acting to reverse the years of decline and the recent plunge into despair. This is, therefore, a general call-to-arms to all old boys and old girls and all their spouses, friends and well-wishers to rebuild the school and reconstruct the burnt records.
The success of this endeavour will hinge upon the revival and mobilisation of the old boys’ and old girls’ network, something Budo has perfected. Because Budo introduced HSC classes long before NHS, most NHS students leaving “O†level in 1963 and before, ended up in Budo. But even after HSC was introduced in 1964, a number of them still went to Budo for HSC — like the late James Wapakhabulo (1961-1964) and Justice James Ogoola (1960-1963). Their Nabumaliness is more critical now than ever before.
I will start by calling on my classmates like David Buye (1966-1967), Haji Ganyana Miiro (1966-1967) and Disan Kiwanuka (1962-67) and others who came much later — like Elijah Wante (1968-69) and Macdusman Kabega (1969-70), to respond when the trumpet calls.
The call will be loud and clear enough for other far-flung old boys like Dr. Njoroge Mungai (1941) and John Garang (1946-48) to hear. I called Dr. Mungai in Nairobi to give him the bad news.
Someone else will have to inform John Garang; maybe his classmate Canon Codva Wakiro.
The writer is chief executive officer,
Uganda Clays Limited