The country is reeling from the death of renowned media practitioner and former presidential press secretary, Joseph Tamale Mirundi who passed on today morning (August 14) at Kisubi Hospital.
Mirundi, aged sixty, was holding the portfolio of senior presidential advisor on media and public relations, a position he loved to hate. Son to Molly Namatovu and Yowana Mirundi of Matale Kalagala, Rakai district, Mirundi leaves a mixed legacy, with some thinking he was a reckless and fearless commentator while others see a thoughtful and independent commentator.
He has been renowned for his no-holds-barred attack on excesses in government despite being part of the ruling establishment. The journalist who reportedly made his way from a humble beginning as a school drop-out was brought to Kampala city by his brother – Ssali who was working with the then Munno Publications in the early 1980s.
Mirundi, according to accounts took on newspaper vending, a fit playing assist to his brother Ssali's role but took a keen interest in writing especially letters to the editor. Later, he took on reporting about events and proved a worthwhile journalist. He was never to look back as the paper sponsored him for short-term training to hone his skills.
Soon he became a colossus at reporting, rising to chief reporter at the paper. He was later to become the paper's editor but broke ranks with his employers in the early 1990s as some board members tried to force him to publish what he was opposed to on ethical grounds.
Mirundi in the mid-1990s started his own company, Lipoota Publication which published Lippota in Luganda and The Report in English. The latter was more short-lived than Lipoota though both publications did not flourish owing to the economic terrain faced by the media then. The situation might have forced him to compromise here and there for the enterprise to survive.
Later, he founded The Voice, which former minister Sam Kuteesa heavily bankrolled for political capital but that also did not live long and collapsed. He is also remembered for his struggles to maintain free media as the government moved to regulate the industry by bringing the press and media statute that required journalists to have a minimum of a diploma for reporters and a degree for editors.
In the panic that engulfed media practitioners, journalists moved to claim self-regulation, which failed. Those struggles saw the media practitioners divided between the elite (as Makerere University opened to mass communication and journalism).
The "Abataasoma (uneducated)" who were dominant by numbers belonged to the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) as the elite registered under the Uganda News Paper Editors and Proprietors Association (UNEPA).
The latter group belonged to the top honchos of the then-nascent Monitor Publications. Mirundi belonged to the former of which he was president at one time. Mirundi was to later (2003) go back to school, scooping a degree from Makerere University before becoming the longest-serving presidential press secretary (PPS) to President Yoweri Museveni (13 years), who is said to have bankrolled his university studies.
A close relationship had developed through the numerous presidential press conferences that Mirundi attended. At one of those press conferences, Mirundi would beat the president to a bet on whether he would defeat Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander Joseph Kony and his belligerents who were fighting government in northern Uganda. The deceased won his million and went away smiling.
In 2015 he was relieved of his PPS duties in what till his death he described as an intrigue-filled process that bordered on blackmail, ethnic sectarianism and outright abuse from some presidential office colleagues. Nonetheless, he remained a self-proclaimed admirer of Museveni, baffling many as he claimed loath for the system the president headed.
Even then, he remained vocal in his social media and print publications against excesses of power in Uganda, always doing it in a dramatic, comical and sometimes abusive style. Like him or hate him, Mirundi had a hero and patriot in him. Rest in peace Mirundi.
{loadposition inarticle}
Source
