OPINION

By Opiyo Oloya

Many paid tributes in remembrance of the vice-chancellor of Uganda Pentecostal University in Fort Portal, Prof. John Ntambirweki when he passed away on April 12, 2023. He was variously described as “a staunch Africanist”, “an intellectual giant”, “a trail-blazing academic and scholar”, “best law lecturer” and so forth.

All these were true descriptions of the man. To me, though, John Ntambirweki was family. We first met on a warm spring day in June 1984 on the campus of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Someone had told me about a Ugandan family with little children new to town.

When I met John, his wife Pelucy and two little girls Barbara and Brenda in their rental apartment a few days later, he accepted me as his brother and that was that — there was no arguing about it.

Prof. John Ntambirweki

That meant he was startlingly very direct and open about everything.

There were no secrets or whispers he would not discuss in my presence. That included the fact that I needed to get settled down as soon as possible. The life of a bachelor — he told me without mincing words — was not in our culture.

He had completed his Master of Laws (LLM) at the University of Nairobi and enrolled at Queen’s Law in the PhD programme.

Razor-sharp mind and restless, he pushed to extend research in the area of international law which he started in Kenya. He poured his energy into developing and writing his thesis.

Yet the faculty advisers at Queen’s Law school slow-walked his studies, frustrating his efforts at every turn. He was told to take additional courses meant for undergraduate and master’s level students. There was no mistaking the racial overtone in the treatment he was receiving in the hands of the academic advisers who were all white. Never one to feel sorry for himself, John decided he would take his work elsewhere.

But even as he fought battles with Queen’s Law faculty, he opened another front with the Queen’s faculty of education where he urged his wife Pelucy to register for a master’s programme in education management. The evenings at John’s apartment were transformed into long strategy sessions — “You woman,” he would say lovingly to Pelucy, “where is your essay?” He would turn to me and say, “My brother, what’s going on with that project you are working on?”

For a man with very strong opinions about everything, John was refreshingly very progressive. He pushed his wife to complete the master’s programme in the shortest time possible. While Pelucy stayed at the university library into the wee hours of the morning, writing and researching, John did the cooking and looked after the girls. She graduated with accolades in the spring of 1987.

When John flunked his Ontario driving test, rather than suffer the humiliation of it, he urged Pelucy to learn to drive. He bought an old grey Russian-built Lada and assigned me the duty of teaching her the initial driving lessons before she took formal driving lessons and passed the very first driving test. He meanwhile drove an old American 1979 Plymouth Caravelle he called “the beast” and used it for commuting to odd jobs to feed his family. He refused to take the free social welfare money from the Canadian government.

His was always about family first. He loved the girls and fought hard to ensure they received equal treatment in the Canadian school system. One day, I came home to find John livid. He had received a letter from the public school his daughters were attending.

According to the letter, one of the girls likely had a learning disability. “This is pure racist nonsense — my daughter is very bright; she has no disability whatsoever and I will never allow anyone to carry an assessment based on such rubbish.”

This was years before numerous studies found that Black children in Canadian schools were twice as likely as white children to be misdiagnosed with learning disability.

Of course, John was right, there was nothing wrong with the girls. Both did just fine and went on to become top lawyers in their own right.

John believed in education as the equaliser and worked tirelessly not only to push his own family and extended family to get an education, but he also encouraged everyone he encountered to go higher. When I graduated in June 1986 with a teaching degree from Queen’s, I was hired by World University Service of Canada (WUSC) to teach in Botswana for two years. The plan was to get some teaching experience before returning to Canada to complete a master’s in education.

John would not hear of that. “Opiyo, you must get into the master’s programme right now while you are fresh, not two years later,” he argued during one of our evening strategy sessions. Pelucy sided with me and argued in favour of going to Botswana — But to John it was a lost opportunity. I protested that I needed to earn some money. “What money, I will do menial jobs to get the money you need, but your education first.”

He prevailed and the following day, I borrowed his Lada and drove two hours away to the University of Ottawa to pick up application forms for the master’s in education programme — those were the days when there was no online application. We spent the next couple of days completing the application, and writing the essay that accompanied the application, and mailed it in.

With just three weeks left to fly off to Botswana, the University of Ottawa came through, and I began my master’s programme in August that year. The programme would later pave the way for my doctorate in education.

My biggest battle with John was in the summer of 1987. Shortly after Pelucy graduated, John decided the time was right to return home. He had only weeks to get Canadian citizenship for his family. “I am a Ugandan and will die a Ugandan,” John declared, and he would not relent.

“Then you go back and leave the family behind for three weeks to get their papers,” I argued. It was in vain — John had made up his mind, and that was that. My nephew Bryan was born in Nairobi in December 1987.

He reminded me often about the importance of family. When I complained in the summer of 2002 that I could not take my wife Emily and my son Oceng home to Pamin-Yai in Nwoya because of the insecurity, John looked at me as if I was crazy.

“So whose mother is in Bisheshe in Ibanda? He asked with a mischievous laugh. “You have your mother there; you take the boy to Ibanda to see his grandma.” And that is exactly what we did.

I could not speak Runyankole, but had a beautiful time conversing with Grandma Ntambirweki. Each morning, John took little Oceng to look after the long horns.

John was an Africanist, yes, but foremost he was a very proud Ugandan who loved all Ugandans. He loved everything about his birth country and whenever the conversation turned to Uganda, his eyes lit up and he talked animatedly about how the country could be better. Once he decided he could not change the country politically, he settled on at least working to change it through education. His mantra was: An educated country cannot be defeated, Africa as a continent was poised to take off as long as education of this generation and next was assured.

To bring about this dream, with his wife Pelucy, he founded Grotius School of Law and Professional Studies in 2001 which later became Uganda Pentecostal University in 2005.

He insisted on the quality of the graduates — every graduate needed to excel and there was no cutting of corners. He was one of the greatest educators Uganda ever had, but for me John was my brother — He will always be family.

Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya Dr Opiyo Oloya is the Inaugural Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada