Mukono-based Anglican priest, Rev. Geoffrey Kagoye has lashed at the government’s Uganda Broadcasting Service (UBC) for not honoring fallen icons regardless of their contribution to the development of this nation.
Rev. Kagoye, of St. Dunstan’s Church in Mukono Central Division, Mukono Municipality did not have any kind word for UBC Radio where the late Ssaalongo John Ssekandi made an unequalled legacy from the 1960s as an announcements reader, noting that then deceased did not serve Buganda as a region but served the entire nation.
He has expressed dismay that though Radio Uganda where Ssaalongo John used to work was rebranded, becoming UBC Radio, it is absurd that the management failed to honour the deceased at least by a condolence message.
“That is unfortunate and uncalled for. People of the caliber of Ssaalongo John are national heroes. They cannot just be ignored like that at the time of their death,” Rev. Kagoye noted.
He made the above remarks on Wednesday while eulogizing the fallen radio personal announcements reader, Ssaalongo John Ssekandi Katalikabbe, during a requiem service, thanking the Lord for his life, and to give him a decent send off at Bishop James Hannington Church Nsuube in Mukono Central Division.
Ssaalongo John was a personal announcements reader on the former Radio Uganda since the 60s, and also served at Buganda’s Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) before retiring to private business as a farmer up to the time of his death.
“As a nation, he pointed out, we should formulate a format for honoring such people, instead of waiting to praise them in eulogies before burial,” Rev. Kagoye urged.
He also attacked communities for ignoring to prepare, counsel and guide the youth which he said has resulted in indecent dress codes, drug abuse and growing up in a wayward manner.
In the message of the ‘Ssekiboobo’ (Mengo chief for Kyaggwe) read by his Second Deputy, Fred Katende Kangavve, he hailed the deceased as an asset of unity in both Kyaggwe and the entire Buganda Kingdom, and in the various public offices in which he worked.
In his eulogy, Mukono Central Division Chairperson, Robert Peter Kabanda expressed disgust at community members who he said only look at politicians as vote seekers even when they have lost their own kinsmen.
Elaborating, Kabanda said that he grew up in the hands of Ssaalongo John as their homes shared a common boundary.
“For that note, at his 90th birth anniversary, he invited me to his home not as a politician but as a child in the home and he asked his children to honour me as his guest of honour for that function. And today, I am here to mourn my parent and not anything else,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of her siblings, the deceased’s daughter Molly Lwanga Nalubaale thanked their father for attaching importance to proper upbringing and preparing his children for a bright future, adding that they are all grown up and their youngest brother is a university graduate.
Nalubaale said family members have greatly succeeded wherever they have gone, and attributed the success to the legacy left behind by her dad.
She said, “We have always found a leeway in many undertakings because at the mention of his name, they have always opened for us.”
Giving a life history of the deceased, his youngest brother, James Katalikabbe Ntambi said that in the 70s, he was detained at Luzira prison for two years for no clear reasons, where he developed the smoking habit that led to his contraction of lung cancer later on in life.
Katalikabbe said, “He left prison with a new habit of smoking and despite all efforts by family members to convince him to discard it, he refused.”
From then on he added, “The deceased has till his death been surviving on artificial respiration with cylinders of oxygen kept by his bedside up to the days preceding his death.”
Ssaalongo John breathed his last on Monday morning after sustaining a broken thigh bone while preparing to take a bath. He was rushed to Naggalama hospital, where the orthopedic surgeon suggested putting screws in the leg but he declined. The medics also suggested putting a catheter in him but he also refused.
Without option, the family members resorted to taking him to a local orthopaedician at Gayaza in Wakiso district known as Balibaawo, and thereafter to Mulago Hospital after his Blood pressure had increased. He therefore breathed his last breath at Mulago.
He is survived by a widow and 30 out of the 33 children he produced in life.
