President Museveni and First Lady Arrive At the Former premiere’s home earlier today

The mood is sombre as Ugandans are mourning the demise of  one of Uganda’s outstanding leaders, Professor Apollo Nsibambi who died ,on Tuesday , peacefully at his home in Bulange Mengo at the age of 78.

According to sources, former Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi has been battling leukemia. The source said the late has been flying to South Africa for treatment and return back to Uganda.

Now, to many,  the former Prime Minister  was an intellectual, a gentleman, diplomat, moderator, an articulate speaker and very time-conscious.

That is the legacy he managed to curved for himself after 12 years as Uganda’s Prime minister before he thought of quitting politics in 2011. Nsibambi is the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister, having occupied the office for 12 years, from April 1999 to May 2011.

Some have argued that he is also the most remarkable embodiment of the Prime Minister’s Office in Uganda’s history, considering that the similarly named office that Obote occupied was different (equivalent to head-of-state) and was scrapped in 1966, while the late Dr. Samson Kiseka’s most remarkable tenure was as Vice-President.

Academic to cabinet minister 
Nsibambi is one of those Ugandan politicians who crossed straight from the world of academia into government. Without holding any national political office, or even standing for any significant political office.

In 1996,  he was drafted into cabinet straight from Makerere University where he was the director of the Institute of Social Research and served as Minister of Public Service until 1998 when he was appointed Minister of Education and Sports, and had held this portfolio for just a year when he was elevated to the position of Prime Minister and Leader of Government Business in Parliament.

His appointment to Prime Minister is generally judged to have been based on a combination of factors that the President and ruling party wanted at the time.

Namely; that he was a Muganda with strong ties to Mengo; that he wielded strong influence in the Anglican Church community; and that he was a universally revered personage, being an accomplished academic with dignified mannerisms.

He always argued that keeping out of elective politics always enabled him to act in the interest of the nation without being compromised by constituents.

 

Public Darling
Prof. Aaron Mukwaya of Makerere University says Nsibambi will be remembered for having promoted government positions through colourful oratory, in an exciting, warm and humorous manner. And indeed it should be, considering that the articulate don had always had a fan base waiting to catch his performance every time he took hold of a microphone, as Kampala minister Betty Kamya also totally agrees;

 

Outstanding Scholar During His Time at Makerere

Nsibambi became the first non Head of State chancellor of Makerere University following the enactment of the Universities and other Tertiary Institutions Act.

He was chancellor of Makerere from 2003 to 2007. His four-year tenure as chancellor of Uganda’s largest university was rewarding but had turbulent times marked by several strikes. In October 2007 he talked to URN about his time as a chancellor.

“I feel like greatly privileged to serve Makerere as chancellor. I enjoyed job satisfaction when I served Makerere.” he said.

“I came to the top of my career, I enjoyed carrying out research, I enjoyed teaching, publishing articles. So it has been a great opportunity to pay back my academic debt to Makerere University. But there have also been other problems like indiscipline. Strikes encouraging students to loot their neighbouring areas. I was greatly disgusted by this thuggery. And let me hope that this kind of thuggery will be stumped out of existence. I was more than disgusted by students looting innocent areas during strikes.” he added.

Makerere University vice chancellor ,professor Barnabas Nawangwe also says Prof.Nsibambi was an outstanding scholar who served diligently.

The story is not any different when it comes to his neighbors and friends;

Mengo Darling-Turned-‘Traitor’
The story of everbody hailing the professor might not be the same when it comes to handling the Buganda Kingdom issues, although the government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo heaps praises on him for being a uniting factor;

Before he joined the NRM government, the former premier was a key player at Mengo, where he was constitutional affairs minister and one of the representatives to the 1994 Constituent Assembly as chief agitator for its interests.
But when he joined the NRM in 1996, his formerly warm relationship with Mengo moved to cold with Mengo looking at him as a ‘traitor’ .

The  fallout between Nsibambi and Mengo was best reflected when Mengo sent back to him the $1,000 he had contributed towards the repairing of the burnt Kasubi Tombs.

Farmer And Father-Figure To Many
Nsibambi was born in 1940. He attended King’s College Budo for his high school education and held a Bachelor of Science degree in economics with honors from the Makerere University under London University.

He also held a Master of Arts degree in political science from the University of Chicago in the United States. His Doctor of Philosophy degree was obtained from the University of Nairobi. Professor Nsibambi was married to the late Rhoda Nsibambi who died at 62 in 2001. He later married Esther Nakiboneka Kabuuza with whom he has been living until his demise.

Upon retirement from government, he said he was falling back to a life of research, writing, playing the piano and attending to his farm.

He died a ‘saved man’, having confirmed in 2015 that he repented his sins;

”In 2015, the Lord appeared to me again, I repented all my sins, I don’t want to go to hell”, prof. Nsibambi said.