__________________

OPINION

By Simon Kaheru

The Honourable Cecilia Ogwal is this week being escorted by tens of millions of Ugandans, even if not all of them are attending her send-off ceremonies or following them on YouTube.

When her death was announced the first commentators focused their memory on her being our first beauty queen.

That irritated a number of us, including my wife who was dismayed at anyone choosing that tidbit as an angle for a person of such high achievement and influence on our society over the last four decades.

Yet, thinking about it a little more I realised that just analysing her from those two high positions — Beauty Queen and National Political Leader — Hon. Cecilia Ogwal is the embodiment of a good Ugandan juxtaposed against so many others.

The ignobility amongst beauty queens and other socialites of recent years makes her having sat on that throne seem unfathomable. She was decades and miles apart. As a politician, even more so.

Those who did not see her running Uganda during the 1980s as one of the main leaders of the UPC (Uganda People’s Congress) might have no idea what it is like to hear a voice of reason in an atmosphere that made very little sense.

When the UPC government fell and she stayed right here in her country, in her home with her family, she stood out again amid the exodus of officials fleeing into exile because of who she was and what she believed.

She did not stop at just staying here — she continued in government because of her calling and stayed there representing her people even in the most dire of circumstances between rebel and government forces that had recently switched sides.

She spoke truth to power without fear, a phrase bandied about carelessly today but meaningfully used with respect to her.

As a cub reporter I’d be amazed at some of the stories coming out of the engagements during the northern Uganda war in its early stages, involving people like Hon. Cecilia Ogwal.

The stories abound of how many times she stood up to authority not just here in Kampala offices but out in the unpredictable fields where quick, sometimes questionable decisions were prone to happen.

And in all these decades she has presented no scandal for us to google and speculate over.

A beauty queen and politician without a scandal?

That’s why she deserves a double ‘honourable’ — the honourable Honourable Cecilia Ogwal is among the last of the vintage breed that presents the stark difference between the good old days and some of what we see today.

She was tough out here in the public eye as a leader of men as well as women, hence the monicker “Iron Lady”, but she was such a gentle mother at home.

One of my earliest memories of her was in our primary school days where she would drop the children herself — with a driver and bodyguards — but herself, in person.

Not many “big people” today show up in the mornings at their children’s schools or anywhere that does not involve the fanfare of “bigness”; and I can’t imagine her having any of those minders balancing her handbag amidst their AK-47s as she catered to the children.

I solidly recall seeing her being a mother on the schoolyard like all the other mothers, telling off one of the twins one morning when he appeared to misbehave.

And she would be a mother in at home in the evenings as well, as many of us saw during our time growing up alongside her children.

Again, how many leaders do you know have dinner with their families or even go into their kitchens ahead of the meal?

All the eulogies spoke of the same person all through — a level of consistency that we rarely see today at such farewells.

The best bits were presented by her well-spoken children who in few words told of their mother the mother, grandmother, Christian, friend, influencer, politician and leader.

Throughout the week, though, her children have included more than those who sat round her dinner table in Bugolobi — numerous politicians, businesspersons, relatives and friends all spoke up about how she had mothered them and made them who they were today.

What a leader! What a Ugandan! She surely deserved to have that flag draped over her casket as it was in her heart. As Hon. Miria Matembe said in church at Nakasero, honourable Honourable Cecilia Ogwal lived truly as a patriot to the words “For God and My Country”.

www.skaheru.com @skaheru