Cheeye planned online publication before his death—friend

 PIC: Cheeye (right) planned a new publication

Legendary investigative journalist Teddy Sseezi Cheeye had been preparing his news magazine to go online before he was knocked dead by a speeding boda boda on Thursday, his close friend has said.

James Tumusiime said after walking out of Luzira Prison and putting his Uganda Confidential out, Cheeye realised he needed to change a few things about the magazine.

"Indeed he began to realise that the landscape had changed so he decided to move more towards putting it online rather than on the streets, so he was adjusting it to fit in with the time," Tumusiime told New Vision on Friday.

Cheeye was released from Luzira on March 3, 2017 after serving a 10-year jail sentence over embezzlement of funds (sh200m) meant for global fund activities.

He became a Born-Again Christian and said his publication would be based on deep spirituality and would provoke debate on the way forward for Uganda.

Tumusiime said the former director of economic monitoring at the Internal Security Organisation was somebody with a very strong character.

"He was determined to begin from where he had stopped.  It just appeared like nothing would stop him. You would expect somebody who comes out of jail having been jailed under the circumstances that he was jailed to lie low but still he was giving interviews to the media, writing articles," he said.

Before becoming economic director in the External Security Organisation, Cheeye was publisher and editor of Uganda Confidential

With the tagline ‘The paper that splits the Atom', observers said he significantly changed Uganda's journalism in the early nineties by ruthlessly exposing corruption in government. With time, he had accumulated a battalion of enemies.

The 60-year-old Cheeye, who is survived by a widow and three children, will be laid to rest at his ancestral home in Luwero at 2:00pm on Sunday.