Sir Adrian Sibo: The last of the men from Kisoro that drove Uganda public service selflessly

By Dr John W Bahana

Papal Knight, Sir Adrian Sibo was this week buried in his home district, Kisoro after glowing tributes were showered on a man that clearly deserved national accolades for after all, if the Pope can knight you, your nation should do even better. 

It was a measure of how, moreover, the nation recognised Adrian Sibo, when no other than the President himself attended the requiem mass held in his honour, at the majestic Rubaga Cathedral.

The Order of St. Gregory the Great is one of the five Orders of Knighthood of the Holy See and was established in 1831. This special honour is bestowed upon Roman Catholic men and women and in rare cases, to non-Catholics, in recognition of their personal service to the Holy See and to the Roman Catholic Church, through their extraordinary work, and their excellent examples in their communities and their countries.

Tributes were paid by President Museveni who addressed the full church including His Eminence Emmanuel Cardinal Wamala, His Grace the Archbishop of Kampala, Kizito Lwanga, veteran politician, Paul Semwogerere, the Chief Justice and a host of other High Court and Supreme Court Judges.

In his eulogy, President Museveni talked of Adrian Sibo as a fisher of men, not only for the Catholic Church at large but also for the country in which he recommended to the President excellent men and women for the nations' public service.

That in his memoirs Adrian Sibo had himself talked of the epitome of his life as the time he was chosen as Constituent Assembly Representative confirmed what the President underscored.

In less than one year, Kisoro district has seen off men of substance that clearly made a stamp on Ugandan public service. They included Paediatrician par excellence Dr Sebikali, who worked for decades, quietly away at medical school and made thousands of mothers happy by the way he attended to their sick children.

Then there followed, early this year, Engineer Stephen Munyantwari, much less known because, after many years in National Housing Corporation, a Parastatal enterprise, he had returned to private business.

These were the men who evolved, or to use a science term, metamorphosed from boys that trudged the volcanic hills of Kisoro, pursued education with vigorous determination and, as if being chased by wild animals, must have said to themselves: "no looking back to the crushing poverty that surrounded their homesteads". I write this piece, not only as a tribute to Sir Adrian, but additionally to the men from my home district of Kisoro that was and has never been endowed with significant natural resources. These were boys who only looked after cows and goats as they were growing up and virtually nothing more.

But the moment they heard the word of the missionaries about better life beyond the hills, doggedly decided there would be no more cattle and hoes in their lives, at least not in the peasantry style they witnessed every day.

Also, that Bufumbira (today's Kisoro) was part of the pre-colonial Rwanda kingdom often confused these intelligent boys and girls with their cousins across the border that was designed not of their making but the colonial enterprise. Perhaps this confusion also drove them to prove a point that they were very much Ugandan as Ugandans can be. They used the opportunity offered by missionaries to go to seminaries, but no doubt at the back of their minds, education first, for none of them became a priest, except one , who, like his contemporaries, also passed on this year; Bishop Helem'Imana.

The young men sought education beyond seminaries and those that were not catholic by conversion, as if in competition also went to the highest levels, challenging the colonial establishment and excelling at such prestigious British universities as Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburg, etc.

They returned home, joined the civil service and there, too, excelled. The leader of the pack was Frank Kalimuzo who was the first African district commissioner and later head of Civil Service soon after independence. He was murdered by the rogue Amin regime at the time he had been appointed first Vice Chancellor, Makerere University.

Within the pack, there was Eldad Mpyisi, Permanent Secretary at Labour, his younger brother, Karuhije Basaza, Under Secretary; Engineer Rugamba credited with rural roads and ground water pumps in Kisoro, who was also murdered by Amin's henchmen. There was Frank Gasasira, ADC, then DC and finally PS and largely credited with decentralisation at Local Government, deputised as Under Secretary, by John Rucogoza, still alive.

At independence, the first African Chief Medical Officer was Norman Kanyarutoke. E. B. Musominali was responsible for developing education in the Kigezi sub-region starting from 1945. Along these pioneering men of the 1960s, 70 and 80s were Francis X Hatega, athlete par excellence and Ambassador extraordinaire. The Chief Pharmacist was for many years, John Ruberantwari.

We have former Principal Judge Hebert Ntabgoba, retired Justice J P Tabaro, former Solicitor General Peter Kabatsi and former and recently retired Minister of Agriculture and having held numerous public service positions including director of Agriculture, managing director of Uganda Coffee Development Authority.

Young men from Kisoro were determined to make a mark in public and political spheres. The most notable was John Kalekezi, the father of the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura.

In the list of nationalists who fought for Uganda's independence released in October 1962 by anti colonialist leader Augustine Kamya, Kalekezi was second to Paulo Muwanga (unfortunately Paulo died not in acclamation but despised for rigging 1980 elections in favour of Obote's UPC). Here was a young man, expelled from Makerere for his independence activities, then deported to Rwanda-Burundi, from where Kalekezi trudged to Cairo, you won't believe it, on foot through Uganda, disguised as a peasant. It was from Cairo that he linked with Kwame Nkrumah and Abdel Nasser to form the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation. Kale died, two years shy of Uganda's independence, in an aircraft crash in 1960 while travelling back as African representative at the Gary Powers' trial in Moscow, a hugely significant event in the murky days of the Soviet-USA Cold war confrontation. Kalekezi was dubbed a communist by colonial establishment and the catholic priests refused to conduct a requiem mass at his burial. I was present at the burial more in curiosity as a child than anything else.

The man who took over the political mantle of the area, not as a firebrand as Kalekezi, was first Member of Parliament and Minister, Arsen Mbonye, still alive, having prematurely taken over from Denis Munderi, a teacher at Ntare School, who had died suddenly

Of much later generation and one hopes not the last of Kisoro representation in public service is Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour, Pius Bigirimana, Vincent Rubarema, PS at Ministry of Agriculture and recently retired Under Secretary, Chris Kanya as well as Ambassador Hatega at East African Community and of course General Kale Kayihura, the highest military rank from Kisoro and Inspector General of Police.

Kale Kayihura, in his own tribute to his great Uncle, Sibo, called for documentation of the deeds and accomplishments of these great men. And here, I wish to single out Bigirimana, who has already produced two books in connection with his public service.

So why does Sir Adrian Sibo represent a passing generation unlikely to be seen in this country? Sitting next to a senior citizen from Kisoro at the Rubaga ceremony, I was reminded that 30 years ago, Justice H Ntabgoba observed that corruption had so much entrenched itself in the fabric of Ugandan Society that to totally eliminate it would be as drastic and as unimaginable as getting rid of all adult Ugandans. How right he was.