ABEL MUHEREZA KYAMUTETERA is a communications practitioner working with Media Analyst. He shared his life story with Simon Kasyate, the host of Capital FM’s Desert Island Discs program.
Good evening and welcome to the show!
Thank you Simon, I am happy to be here.
You are a man with many hats; but what do you really do?
I think in life human beings are blessed with an ability to be many things…I look at myself as a communicator. I sometimes make money in the process of doing that.
Who are you?
I was born on May 2, 1980 in the district of Bushenyi at Ishaka Adventist hospital. I am one of those lucky few to be born in a hospital back then. I was born as Muhereza Abel.
I normally joke that when I reached the age of 18 and realized that I am not going to grow any taller, I decided to drop my short name Abel for a longer one Kyamutetera, which is my dad’s name. I think people find it easy to remember my name. Some people want to give it a nicer version, they call me Kyamu.
I was born in a very interesting family of ten children. All of them from one mother and one father and I am the ninth – or second-last born. That means you practically have like one sibling that you can bully. Unfortunately, I lost my dad when I was three years; the positive side is that we were always by our mother and being a mother and a father at the same time, we grew up seeing her as hardworking and I think it taught us many things.
Break your family down for us.
Three girls and seven boys… I think our mom was a good general that would never tolerate nonsense. Standard practice every morning before you went to school, you all had to go to the well to fetch water and you go to the forest and fetch two rounds of firewood.
All of you?
Of course the chores would be different. For example we had a huge plantation of pineapples, sometimes we had to go and collect grass for mulching or it had to be the weeding. But at least before you went to school every day, you had to put in one hour of work.
At what point did it start?
As long as I remember, it was around five years.
Plays Mother How Are You Today by May Wood to his mother
Which schools did you go to Kyamu?
I went to Katabi primary school. It was a Catholic school. There was a school which was about half a kilometer form our home but it was a Protestant school; so, I couldn’t go there. They took me to a Catholic school which was about three kilometers away.
Is that how things were arranged?
Yeah. But by the time I reached P3, I think my mom had seen the light. She decided to take us to a neighbourhood school called Kashenyi primary school where we did P3, P4 and P5. From there, I went to a preparatory seminary, that is for my P6 and P7.
Your mother thought that you could give a shot at priesthood?!
I think for us it was more of a tradition because all my other brothers went through seminary but, unfortunately, none of them became a priest. I think being a priest is more of a vocation; so, we have gone on to do other vocations and serve humanity.
From here, where did you look to?
Young as I was, I never thought of myself being a priest. So, at the end of my two years, I decided that I was not fit for the holy order. I went on to join St Joseph’s Vocational School in Mbarara, which is also a Catholic school but at least they were less rigid.
Mass was compulsory but only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday. That means that out of the seven days, you had four days without mass. But in the seminary, you had to celebrate mass every day. I think St Joseph’s was more of a secular school than a Catholic school because every Saturday we had permission to go out. From there, I went to Namilyango for my A-level.
While you run through these schools, did you have an idea of what you wanted to become in life?
I think in O-level the issue of who I wanted to become was not my problem. I was good in the arts, though. Mathematics, I was terrible, it is a family trait!
I remain the best mathematician in the family because I got a C6. But I never thought of what I wanted to be. O-level was just living everyday on its own. But I was a bit revolutionary. I remember in first term of S2, I got suspended three times.
How long was that term?
It was about two months.
And how long were the suspensions?
One week each.
What had you done?
The usual stuff. I used to hate French, so I would dodge the French lessons. I regret what I did today. It is interesting. Much as I hated French, I liked to impress girls with French. I had a friend and we would meet during holidays and when girls were around, we would pretend to be conversing in French.
What we would do was to combine all the French words we knew and pretend to be having a conversation. Then the other offence was missing mass…we had this teacher who could never get tired of looking for us!!
Three suspensions in one term and your mother didn’t kill you!
Up to now I am surprised. But I think we, as kids, had figured out that our mother loved us so much and therein we saw the weakness. We always had a way of convincing her that we are not the bad ones, it is the teachers who are bad.
Somehow she managed to believe that the teachers didn’t like us, because one would wonder, somebody who misses class, how come you come out among the top five?
Why are you saying we? Just say I managed to manipulate my mother!
Actually I am one of the nicest guys. I got suspended four times and was never expelled. I have brothers who were expelled two times.
But I think our mother stuck to us and this is where I say, as parents who get your child and they mess up once or twice and give up on them, I really think what you get from there is that never give up on your children because out of the ten children, there were only two that never got an expulsion or a suspension.
My younger brother, he was expelled from Butobere, he went to St Kagwa high school and he was suspended within the first week.
What inspired you to move from Mbarara to Namilyango College?
It’s none that I can attribute to myself. I have a brother Marcelino. He is the kind of guy who took over as our dad. Initially, I had been admitted in St Josephs Naggalama SS because that is where I had put my choice. Even Nyakasura had given me. But my brother was reluctant to take me there.
So, my brother knew some people at Namilyango. One day I am at home and he calls me and says I have been given a place in Namilyango, go and collect the admission letter. That is how I ended in Namilyango.
What combination were you given?
HEL/D.
What struck you first when you reached Namilyango?
Two things. First was the sense of anonymity. At St Joseph’s, we were just 400 students. The head teacher new almost the whole school. You basically had nowhere to hide. The teachers knew you, your brothers…your family.
But in Namilyango, we were over 1,200 students and O-level teachers never knew A-level students. Namilyango is about four kilometers from the main road and the main means of transport to the road was either walking or a boda boda. You would actually escape, sit on a boda boda with a teacher of O-level and the teacher would never identify you.
How many of such experiences do you have?
I think I escaped only twice and it was a do-or-die situation on both occasions because I was broke and I had to go look for money from my brother. I really needed to do it.
The other thing that struck me was the level of opulence at the school. You find a student with two suitcases, one for grub and one for clothes. Here I was who in St Joseph’s I had this metallic case where I would put my clothes and grab and there was still a lot of space left.
Plays Bad For You by Nicki Minaj
How do you settle in from the rural school to a first-class school?
Like I said, there was a culture shock. I remember at the end of the first term holidays, I had a friend, Joseph Kyewalabye. Then mobile phones were not as many, landlines were the ones available. He asks me ‘what is your phone number at home?’ Can I call you?
I told the guy we didn’t have a phone at home and he couldn’t believe it, he thought I was joking. But I think I looked at that as a challenge and I made a decision that I should be better, give my children a much better life. So, I looked at it as an inspiration.
At this stage, you surely had an idea of what you wanted to be.
I wanted to be either a journalist or a lawyer, although I think I should have become a lawyer. So far I have managed to achieve one. At form six when I was filling in for university, law was my first choice and mass communication was the second choice.
I think I was mis-advised. I missed getting law by 0.1 and because I had put Mass Comm as second choice, I still didn’t get it. I ended up doing social sciences. But as soon as I finished campus, I knew I wanted to become a journalist. I lobbied and ended up at Daily Monitor.
Don’t just gloss over that…!
…. I think being at university on government sponsorship is one of the best things that can happen to anyone. You sleep, shower hot water, eat breakfast, lunch, evening tea with bread, and then you are assured of supper. You are sure the basics of life are met. All you needed to do is have something like Shs 5,000 or Shs 10,000 to buy some chips if your girlfriend visited.
From Catholic schools to freedom at university where you begin appreciating people of the opposite sex: how did you fare in that field?
I was an amateur. Actually, I got my first girlfriend in second year of the university and she went on to become my wife. The rest I would just see them from a distance. We used to call it optical nutrition. I just liked looking at them. I would just feel happy being around girls. I spent most of the first year just being around girls.
You just woke up and the girl you saw eventually became your wife!
I had actually seen her before, in form five. The brothers were my friends. We had met during Christmas holidays at some locally-organised debate. When she came to campus, we connected.
Plays Hero by Mariah Carey.
How did you become a journalist?
When I was at university in third year, we had this association. It was more of a self-discovery group where we met people and shared experiences and I remember that is where I first met Amos Wekesa, the guy of tourism. One time we invited a guy, many people know him as Dr Love, he is called Hillary Beinemigisha.
He came to talk to us… When I met him, he told me he was an editor at Monitor. But even then before that there was a guy called Alex Atuhaire who used to report for Daily Monitor. He used to come and visit a room where my girlfriend used to sleep. He would come with his phone with airtime and give everybody to call.
So, I was like there must be money in journalism. Little did I know that he would come at specific times after Daily Monitor had loaded airtime for staff. So, when I met Hillary and he told me that he was an editor, I said I want to go work there. He gave me his email address and told me that if you have any writing, just email it to me.
I sat down and wrote, by then he used to edit Women&Men, which was a very popular insert. I wrote two articles and one was published a week later. The second was also published. I called him and he said you can actually write more. I started writing and actually started a column called Lovenomics where I could insert the principles of economics into love.
It became very popular and just about the time I had started writing, there was an opening for a business reporter and I applied, sat the interview and passed. The rest is history.
Did you enjoy being a journalist?
Journalism is a very, very interesting job. The idea of being a reporter, you call up people, people listen to you especially when you have a good story. They either don’t want to be heard or they greatly want to be heard. So, people give you audience.
Meeting people in influential places also helped me. But perhaps the most depressing part of being a journalist, especially being a business reporter, is going to cover a press conference where a guy has just declared a profit of ten billion shillings and he is hosting you to a cocktail, he is giving you champagne and immediately after you step out, it is raining and you have to look for a boda boda.
I found that quite depressing about journalism. But I think much of it is good memories. I made a point to practice journalism up to a certain point because, to be honest, journalism in Uganda does not pay good money, money that when you grow and get a wife [can take care of you]. At some point I had to leave and get to other areas where I could further my skills.
You are not inspiring anyone here?
If you stay in there and do it well, you can make some money. But truthfully speaking, if you look at the top 50 companies in terms of revenue, there is perhaps one or two media organizations.
Where did you go from journalism?
I did not leave at once. I used to be the executive editor of the CEO Magazine, which is a monthly business publication. But I think I decided I didn’t want to do journalism as a full-time job.
I decided to look for opportunities and realized that the communications industry is where I would go, using my skills and experience, I had met people during my course of business journalism. I tried my luck. There was an advertising agency then that had an opening for PR. I was recommended by a lady called Brenda Mawenu. I sat an interview and passed.
Which organization was this?
That was ZK Advertising. I was a PR manager. It came at a good time, I had just married my wife and my salary was doubled at ZK. Interestingly in communications, you still do journalism but in a different perspective.
Are you blessed with any children?
Yes, we are blessed with four children. Three boys and one girl.
You have also been involved in philanthropy, especially on cancer-related causes…
I don’t know what people think about me but I think in life as a person, I am this kind of person who likes helping. There is a time I found a guy who had been knocked by a car on Northern bypass at around 8am.
It was raining and everyone was passing the guy, somehow I just felt something in me that made me turn my car and I put the guy in because his leg had been broken into two. He was bleeding a lot, I put him into my car. So, it is not something I do to attract attention, I think there is when as a person you see something and you just get touched.
The most famous campaign you have been involved in was the #savecarol campaign: in these campaigns, when all is said and done, do you feel a sense of gratification or…
…One thing I have found out is that being good to others is good business.
Are the returns on investment high?
They are high but not from the economic perspective. There is when as a person you go home and just as you fall asleep, or maybe when you are driving home in a traffic jam, you get time to reflect about yourself. There are those moments where you feel good about yourself.
You say okay, I think I am making a difference in life. That, to me, is the dividend. It inspires you to do the next project. And of course nowadays I get many calls, people asking me to come and help them. Realistically, you can’t do all those things.
But there is also that bad feeling that this one I have not been able to help. You feel bad about yourself. But I think by and large, the campaigns I have been involved in have been very successful.
Actually, I understand this has come to your doorstep…the scourge of cancer, can you talk about it?
It is amazing, although not in a positive way. Just about a month after we had closed the #savecarol campaign, my own wife was diagnosed with breast cancer…We have gone to Nairobi, we have done the surgery, she started on treatment and she has this special strain of cancer that over and above the normal chemotherapy, she still has to do some special treatment every three weeks.
It is quite expensive, about $1,900 per dose. But it is something we have to go through as a family. What is very annoying about that is that when your loved one gets a disease like cancer, it is when you realize how bad our medical systems are. You can’t help but get angry. But because of the urgency of the situation, again you have to focus and get things done. We took her to Nairobi.
She is about to get done with the eight rounds of chemotherapy and we are planning to take her to India to do radiotherapy because our machine here broke down. But also the other reason we are going to India is that there is modern technology in India called PET scan.
After getting radiotherapy, it is the most recent technology to diagnose whether the treatment you have been getting worked or not. Because there have been cases where people have been told that they are cancer-free only for the disease to return in three months…and when it returns, it comes full-force and normally takes down the patients.
You have been good to people, have people reciprocated?
Like I said, being good to others is good business. I have met people who I never thought were my friends and when I tell them about the situation of my wife, they go into their pockets and give generously…but I think overall in life…the act of being a human being is living and working with people. If you do good things, they will come back to you.
Where do we expect to see Kyamutetera five, ten years from now?
I seriously want to stand as a president of Uganda. I think I can make a change, although I don’t think the voters will like my change because when I look around, there are some things that need to be radically changed.
Like today, if I woke up and I was president, the first thing I would do is fire the entire cabinet and to reconstitute the entire civil service. I think the kind of service we get as a country is way, way below acceptable standards.
If you were marooned on a desert island, and allowed to take one thing or one person, what or who would you take?
I would go with myself.
Plays Ndi Wanjawulo by Sheebah Karungi
TRANSCRIPT: JOSEPH KIMBOWA