He was an outspoken person, had an acidic tongue, and used persuasive language that endeared him to the masses. He also dared to delve into the untouchable issues. As long-time friend and colleague Siraje Lubwama writes, Mirundi was a polarising figure who was loved and loathed almost in equal measure.
I came to know Tamale Mirundi in 1992 through my good friends Hussein Musa Njuki and Haruna Kanaabi, the respective editor-in-chief and news editor of the Wilson road-based Shariat weekly newsletter. He was a budding freelance journalist who wrote for mainly Munno newspaper, but once in a while transferred his stinging stories to Shariat.
From the onset, Mirundi had the persona of a very independent person. He openly declared that he was never baptized, claiming that when his father took him to church to be baptized at the age of nine, he wrestled with the parish priest and ran away. I learnt that John Ssali, his elder brother, brought him to Kampala in 1979 and enrolled him at Kampala High School in S2.
Even before completing S6, Mirundi was already a reporter for Munno, and during the NRM bush war, he got to interview key figures such as Gen Salim Saleh. When NRM came to power in 1986, the early founders of Utoda, the taxi operator in Kampala, patronised him as their de facto spokesperson whenever they ran into trouble.
Mirundi never disappointed, and this gave him the platform to become a mouthpiece for several distressed entities and individuals in the city. Shortly after completing his Mass Communication degree at Makerere University in the early nineties, many of us were still comfortable with being employed, but Mirundi initiated two independent newspaper publications, The Voice and Lipoota.
The papers only sold a few hundred copies on the streets of Kampala, but it was clear Mirundi was a man on an independent mission. He often despised us who were employed in formal media entities. He also took a pro-Buganda, anti-NRM stance that greatly endeared him to the ordinary folk.
On two occasions in the nineties, Mirundi was elected Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) president, and in both terms, I served under him as publicity secretary.
During a periodic press conference, Mirundi accused President Museveni of excluding Muslims from the human rights abuse inquiry, which Justice Arthur Order was chairing. In another press conference in the nineties, Mirundi staked and won Shs 1 million against Museveni when he predicted that the UPDF would not flush out Joseph Kony’s LRA in northern Uganda by 1997.
After establishing himself as a popular panellist on various FM radio stations, especially CBS FM, he tried his luck to vie for a parliamentary seat in Kyotera in 2001. But by then, he had already stepped on several high-profile toes, and there was already a force to fight his ascendency.
He lost to little-known Pius Mujuzi thanks largely to the influence of Gen. Elly Kayanja, whom Mirundi accused of using the UPDF to intimidate voters. Tamale and Kayanja later made peace. After burning his fingers in politics, Mirundi amplified his outspokenness and activism, and he got patronised by several leading politicians and businessmen.
Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, then minister of Local Government, covertly backed him financially while businessman James Kibuuka Mulowooza bankrolled the publication of Murundi’s occasional ‘intelligence’ pamphlets disguised as books.
JOINING THE STATE
By 2004, Mirundi’s stature had risen so high he had become the most sought-after panellist for political talk shows. He had the rare gift of simplifying complex historical, political, security and intelligence issues with similes easily discernible by ordinary folk. He, at times, used sexual innuendos. Where other panellists would be given a minute to talk, Mirundi’s time was always unlimited.
However, Mirundi would soon fall out with the Buganda kingdom when he made a 180-degree turn to attack several kingdom officials, including the Kabaka. Rumours swirled that he had been ‘bought’ or become disillusioned, but Mirundi insisted he was speaking his mind.
He also used his popularity to attack Dr Kizza Besigye and it didn’t come as a surprise in December, 2004, when President Museveni, at the urging of his principal private secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, appointed Mirundi deputy press secretary.
He told me back then that as he was moving at Queen’s Way towards Katwe to meet Gen Henry Tumukunde and others comrades to discuss forming a political party when he was waylaid by security operatives who bundled him in a car and drove him to Rwakitura to meet President Museveni.
“At Rwakitura, I asked him [Museveni] for money but he instead offered me a job I couldn’t resist,” he told me back then.
That proved to be a turning point for Mirundi as he became the chief defender of President Museveni. Interestingly, in the course of acting as the president’s ‘barking dog,’ even several top-level government officials found themselves on the negative end of Mirundi’s acidic tongue. He openly harangued then vice president, Gilbert Bukenya, for being a womanizer. He labelled Gen Jim Muhwezi as the most corrupt person in Uganda. No one, even in government, was safe from Mirundi.
So lethal was Mirundi’s tongue that many corrupt officials dreaded him knowing about their dealings. However, Mirundi made many of his utterances without clear evidence or proof. It also became clear that he was always being used in internal fights within government.
In all this, it always intrigued me why no one took action against Mirundi’s often reckless utterances that had the power to change appointments or alter multibillion-dollar deals. He always confided in me that no Ugandan apart from President Museveni can take him on because “they all have skeletons in their closets.”
The one person who dared to take him on was Charles Muganzi, the former Ministry of Works permanent secretary, who dragged him to court for defamation.
According to reports, Mirundi settled the case out-of-court in 2012 for about Shs 150 million. Behind the scenes, however, Mirundi always had my best interests. He always shared intelligence information with me, especially in regards to Muslim arrests. He was always concerned about the government’s arbitrary arrest of Muslims.
During the September 2009 Buganda riots, after the government stopped the katikkiro from visiting Kayunga, Tamale alerted me and fellow panellists on Radio Simba’s Gasimbagane ne Banamawulire about an impending raid by security operatives to arrest us on air. We escaped through the windows and narrowly avoided arrest.
LEAVING STATE HOUSE
In 2015, President Museveni, under immense pressure from close associates, relieved Mirundi of his position as press secretary. The machinations that led to this are still debatable to this day, but Mirundi was never the same.
Whereas State House continued to offer education scholarships to his children, Mirundi felt betrayed and spent the rest of his life lamenting about the circumstances that led to his sacking. Mirundi’s ouster from the State House greatly broke him down, to the extent that he frequently had confused perspectives of the government.
He often said that a group of thieves and self-seekers surrounded a good man in President Museveni. Some of the people he attacked relentlessly were Odrek Rwabwogo, Andrew Mwenda, Col Edith Nakalema, and Gen. Nalweyiso.
GUN FOR HIRE?
For all his influence, Mirundi spent the last few years of his life as a downgraded version of his former self. The Mirundi, who used to turn tables and influence decisions in key government boardrooms with a single utterance on radio, was reduced to providing comic relief for social media enthusiasts.
It also became evident that his love for the bottle, or simply alcoholism, was taking a toll on him as he reduced himself to sometimes uttering vulgar statements in a bid to stay relevant in media circles.
At the time of his death, his influence had greatly waned, and it had become a public secret that Mirundi was a sure-fire gun for hire for influential people to settle political and personal scores.
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