Kyanjo: Orator who lost his voice

Yesterday morning the nation woke up to the death of former Makindye West MP  Hussein Kyanjo.

Kyanjo had been sick since 2011. His condition had become so bad that he was in February last year rumoured dead. 
Two months later, his friends launched an initiative to raise $30,000 (about Shs108 million) for his treatment. 

“Hon Kyanjo was poisoned and now fighting cancer. $30,000 is urgently needed for his cancer treatment. Help to save his life please. Join the fundraising event tomorrow (Sunday April 17) on zoom at 3pm UK time (5pm Uganda time),” the notice read.

That turned out to be a mission impossible. Death was, therefore, always coming, yet when it came as it did yesterday morning, it left us shocked.

Cutting career short
The former legislator was diagnosed with Dystonia, a neurological movement disorder characterised by involuntary contractions of the muscles. That leads to slow repetitive movements or abnormal posters that can at times be painful.

The disorder may be hereditary or caused by other factors such as birth-related or other physical trauma, infection, poisoning or reaction to pharmaceutical drugs.
Kyanjo told this publication in a June 2014 interview that he believed that he had been poisoned.

“I checked and found I could not have inherited it because no one has suffered from such a disease in our family. It also cannot have been caused by an accident because I have never been involved in any. So, I was left with one possibility—poisoning.”

Was he poisoned? By who? That we may never know.
What we know is that the disease resulted into a partial impairment of his speech, something which greatly contributed to his decision to bring down the curtain on a short, but glittering political career that began more by accident than design.

Accidental politician
If what Mr Muhammad Kibirige Mayanja, the chairperson of the Justice Forum, has to say is anything to go by, Kyanjo had never set out to become a politician. Events around the Constituent Assembly and the politics that followed were what combined to throw him into the murky waters of politics.

“A system that we thought was provisional to allow the country to achieve peace, allow every Uganda to form political parties and get their full freedom of association as they wished, was suddenly institutionalised and turned into a permanent system. We felt that was a way of institutionalising tribalism. We thought that was the limit to what we could allow. That was our real awakening and we said, ‘No this cannot be’. We said that there is no way out, but save to go in and begin to fight for our freedom,” Mr Kibirige Mayanja said.

It was against such a background that various discussion groups were formed to have discourses on the political options available. Among those that attended those discourses was Dr Mukiibi Katende, Hussein Kyanjo, Mr Alex Ojok, Rev Santo and many others from the world of academia.

It was out of those discourses that the idea to form what was to later become the Justice Forum party was born.
At the time the discourses were going on in the mid 1990s, no one could have guessed that Kyanjo would turn into the highly respected politician that he turned out to be.

The orator
Kyanjo distinguished himself as great orator. Like cream, orators always rise to the top. He did in the campaigns ahead of the 1996 presidential elections when his friend, Mr Muhammad Kibirige Mayanja, contested for the presidency.

He was always at hand to back up Mr Kibirige Mayanja who still believes that he had one of the most potent messages of that particular campaign.
“Hussein Kyanjo was one of the most distinguished orators that we had. Wherever we went we left with the impression that if ballots were to be given on the basis of the message alone then we would take the day,” Mr Kibirige Mayanja told this publication in a previous interview.

The stage for his growth as an articulate and highly informed person was enhanced during the days of the open air live broadcasts also known as Bimeeza, where he often stung the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).

By the time they were banned in 2009, Bimeeza had become platforms where citizens could debate issues affecting them. They had also become stages where wizards like Kyanjo acted out their magic thus turning them into big political brands.

It was in part due to the reputation build up on the Bimeeza as an articulate debater and orator that he was elected to succeed the Conservative Party’s (CP’s) Yusuf Nsubuga Nsambu, who had represented Makindye West in the 7the Parliament.

Nationalist
Kyanjo was a Muganda and loved Buganda. He once belonged to a radical group that once called for the cession of Buganda from the rest of Uganda on account of what he described as marginalisation by the rest of the country, but he in subsequent years assumed a more liberal position.

Parliamentary tenure
Kyanjo who represented Makindye West in the 8th and 9th parliaments soon distinguished himself as a great legislator – one that was almost always going to present well researched presentations. That made him a journalists’ darling.

It was, however, not by accident that he emerged as one of the best legislators. He had to put in a shift in order to achieve it.
“I managed to become a good legislator through reading a lot of literature. Parliament has a lot of material to read and I made it a point to read extensively,” he told this publication in a June 2014 interview.

Opposing UPDF deployment
In March 2007, Uganda became the first East African country to deploy troops in Somalia under the auspices of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom). With the NRM having a majority in Parliament, very few voices could rise up to question the wisdom of getting entangled in what has always appeared to be a conflict that very few Ugandans understood. Kyanjo was one of the few who dared say that it was not in Uganda’s best interests that the UPDF was deployed in Somalia. 

The man who was named Shadow minister for the Presidency during the tenure of the 9th Parliament, actually believed that issues other than regional security where at play when it came to the decision to deploy the army in Somalia.

“We are now getting into the electioneering period [2011 General Election] and the Americans have long supported people for their interests - not because of their principle of rightness. That is why they should be willing to continue supporting President Museveni much in the same way as they have been supporting Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia.

The man, who was fluent in quite a number of local languages and dialects, was also one of those who could be relied on to amplify the voices of the voiceless, helpless and downtrodden. He defended human rights and liberties with so much energy.

His stand on many issues was almost all the time not in agreement with the positions of the ruling NRM, which made him appear to be anti-government. 
Martin Luther King Jr once said that, “it does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it”. It would appear that Kyanjo has lived his 65 years well.