On Friday morning, when Geoffrey Oryema touched down at Entebbe international airport, he sobbed – an emotional homecoming for him.

But unknown to him, the people that were waiting for him including Pamela Acaye, multidisciplinary creative and performance artist, Pat Robert Larubi, a journalist with Northern News Wire or Bayimba Foundation’s Faisal Kiwewa were close to tears too.

Some could not believe Oryema was finally coming home or the fact that this performance was, indeed, going to happen. Speaking exclusively to The Observer, Oryema said he had not returned earlier since he was never sure about the situations that followed Idi Amin’s overthrow in 1979; he was afraid he would return and end up in exile again, but added that coming back to Uganda right now was because the time was right.

“I couldn’t continue living for all these years with the deep wound I left Uganda with,” he said. “To be able to move forward, I needed to come to my roots and feel the country.”

He says that much as living abroad is good, if you don’t come back home, you can easily get lost. Born on April 16, 1953, Oryema, 63, one of Uganda’s most celebrated musicians, is a son to Janet Manjeri Acoyo and Lt Col Erinayo Wilson Oryema, Uganda’s first African inspector general of police between 1964 and 1971.

Geoffrey Oryema left Uganda in 1977 at the height of the Idi Amin’s brutal regime. Then only 24, he was smuggled across the Ugandan border in the trunk of a car, as a spate of political murders sucked in the life of his father, alongside that of Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum and Interior minister Charles Oboth Ofumbi.

Oryema eventually made it to France, which has since become home to this immense talent. Coming to Uganda in 2016, he says, is more like closure for him. The homecoming is allowing him to deal with events that saw him desert his motherland and on Saturday he poured all his emotions and 40 years away onto that Kololo stage.

“I would like to close the sad chapter and start a new beginning,” he told The Observer, adding that much as what happened was painful, he has forgiven some of the things, but not forgiven nor forgotten Idi Amin for what he did to his father.

On arrival, Oryema had been driven around town before being escorted to the Serena hotel-based NTV for an interview with Mabel Kebirungi. He noted that all these scenes were bringing back memories that he has lived with through the years.

“Serena hotel, where I had an interview this morning, is the former Nile Mansions; that is where my father was arrested and taken to an unknown destination,” he later said.

And coincidentally, his performance was at Lohana Academy in Kololo, which was his place of residence before the world closed in on him and the family.
When Oryema left Uganda, he was in need and France was willing to embrace him and gave him both a home and a career; today, even as he makes it back to his motherland, he still considers France home.

“From today, I want to make Uganda and France meet because they are both very important to me. I will be going back to France, but I will keep returning. I won’t wait for more 40 years.”

Currently working on his upcoming album, he gifted the patrons at the Bayimba Honors with only a song off it, From Africa With Love. He noted that coming to Uganda would give him the needed inspiration to complete the album.

Exile was the first of the six albums Oryema has created to date; he said he has always been looking for an identity since he grew up listening to different music genres.

With the first album, he got that sound especially because he fused the lukeme, a seven-string harp, with flute and percussive sounds.

“I like it when music evolves; because I am an African, it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t play the guitar,” he said.

Land of Anaka is one of his most loved songs both in Uganda and France. It is a song inspired by the place he comes from, Anaka, and his parents’ burial place. He called the song “so deep”. That, and his other song Brother John/Omera John, are special to him.

In fact, much as many Ugandan millennials had no idea of who Geoffrey Oryema was, the people of Anaka were much aware of who he is. One of the patrons that attended the concert at Lohana over the weekend said he had sold a goat to pay his bus fare to the historical show.

 kaggwandre@gmail.com