KADAGA | AWORI | DEATH 

KAMPALA - Former Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda, Rebecca Kadaga, has joined a long of list of top personalities to pay special tribute to former ICT Minister, Aggrey Awori. 

Kadaga remembered the former minister as a nobleman.

“A great voice of wit, humour, confidence and knowledge has been silenced,” she said, adding: “(You) were an athlete of prowess, who competed in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics. MHSRP. My sincere Condolences to Mrs Thelma Awori and family...”

Awori, 82, died of COVID-19 on Monday afternoon at a private hospital in Kampala. He had reportedly been sick for about a month.

Born on 23 February 1939, in Budimo Village, Busia District, Awori represented Samia-Bugwe North, Busia District in Parliament from 2001 until 2006.

He was an outspoken Opposition member of parliament from the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) political party. However, in 2007, he crossed to the ruling National Resistance Movement.

A Harvard University alumnus, Awori became the first person in heptagonal track history to win three events – the long jump, high hurdles, and 60-yard dash, tying the heps record in the hurdles and setting the mark in the dash.

He also represented Uganda in the 110 metres hurdles at the 1960 Summer Olympics and the 1964 Summer Olympics, although he failed to win any medals.

Former President, Milton Obote appointed him the first local director of Uganda Television (now Uganda Broadcasting Corporation) in 1967.

However, in 1971, President Idi Amin jailed him for two months, for reportedly refusing to broadcast his 1971 coup speech.

He went into political exile in Kenya, where he taught journalism at the University of Nairobi.

After Idi Amin was overthrown in 1979, Awori returned to Uganda. He ran for a seat in the National Assembly of Uganda, but lost. 

He then became Ambassador plenipotentiary in Washington D.C United States, until being transferred by Tito Okello Lutwa in 1985.

In 1985 and 1987, he served as Uganda’s Ambassador to Belgium. He is remembered to have started to build up a rebel group operating from eastern Uganda named Force Obote Back Again (FOBA). 

He however later dissolved it after meeting with Museveni in New York. He was then elected to the Constituent Assembly to make the 1995 Constitution and as a Member of Parliament. 

He also participated in the 2001 presidential elections, coming third, behind Col. Dr Kizza Besigye (in second place) and Museveni, the eventual winner.

Awori was married to Thelma Awori, a former Director for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme. 

Together they are the parents of six adult children.