Rally driver who succumbed to COVID-19 to be buried today

The rallying community in Uganda is mourning the death of rally driver Wilberforce Pole Pole who passed away on Tuesday due to COVID-19 complications.

Pole Pole was also the National Resistance Movement chairman for Rwashemeire Town Council succumbed to death a week after being photographed together with his close friend Polly Matsiko, the chairman of Nyabushenyi sub-county who also passed on.

Family members who spoke to New Vision noted that the was first admitted at Entebbe Hospital last week before he was transferred to Victoria Hospital in Kampala where he passed away on Tuesday evening.

Pole Pole achieved his first career victory during the 2016 Rallye des Mille Collines in Rwanda with Joseph Bongole as his co-driver.

Several colleagues, friends and family members on Wednesday morning turned up at All Saints Cathedral in Nakasero to mourn Pole Pole.

"I've learnt to take the loss of loved ones with a different kind of energy. I celebrate you Pole, for the years God has blessed us with you, for the amount of love you have shown us as a family over the years, and I'm glad you were very aware we loved you back. We were blessed to have known you for this long, many die at birth but we thank God for the time he has blessed us with you. You have left a legacy, we shall surely miss you," Beth Treasure noted.

Rally driver John Burrows described the deceased as a risk-taker who had decided to take on the rallying sport to entertain his fans on a budget. He noted that his death was a very big loss to Uganda as a country and that Pole Pole was a true sportsman.

Driver Desh Kananura noted that he was hurt by Pole's death but that the fraternity would soldier on.

Pole Pole is expected to be laid to rest today in Ntungamo.

Joshua Kato another rally driver mourned the deceased noting that "if selfless was a name, then Pole Pole was one. By any motor rallying standards, he was not one of the richest, however, he touched many drivers positively, if not through his endless jokes then through spare parts. In 2014, during a race at Garuga, I got a puncture during the first run and the spare tyre that I had also somehow deflated. Pole Pole then 'lent me' one of his competition tyres, the first competition tyres that I had ever worn on my rally car."