In this third and final part, we look at the deaths of prominent personalities that rocked Uganda and the world in 2025.
Ngugi wa’ Thiong’o, Novelist, 87, May 28, 2025
To test authenticity, in the hip hop world, a question is asked of every new entrant on stage, “Do you live your raps?” Kenyan writer Ngugi wa’ Thiong’o was one of those who lived what he wrote. He dropped his colonial name of James, after becoming one of the best English writers in the world with novels like The River Between and Petals of Blood, shunned writing in that language for decades, and when it was most dangerous, called out the betrayal of the political class in newly independent Kenya to great personal cost.
Cedric Babu Ndilima, Tennis player and businessman, 50, May 31, 2025
Cedric Babu’s death after a week of illness, in the midst of a frantic search for a heart transplant, stunned many who were not aware of his health struggles. Including some family and friends. The son of well-connected politicians Francis Babu and Olive Kigongo, Cedric should have been in the prime of life. A close friend of first son and CDF General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Babu had been instrumental in drumming up support for the Patriotic League of Uganda in which he deputised Kainerugaba.
From Rajiv to Shaka Ssali: The deaths that shocked us in 2025 (Part Two)
DJ Bush Baby, media personality, 50, June 5, 2025
There was a time in the early 2000s, between 2002 to 2010, when Kenyan and Tanzanian music was all the rage in Kampala. Just as true, Ugandan music was playing in many clubs in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar. EATV and radio was responsible for this creative exchange that threatened to birth a true East African music sound. The face of EATV, for many, was DJ Bush Baby who hosted several shows on it like Friday Night Live which started on radio and was on first name basis with all the creative titans in the then three East African countries from RedSan to Bebe Cool, Klear Kut to hundreds of DJs and other personalities he mentored. Like DJ Bush Baby, born Michael Benjamin Owor, in his Entebbe studio in June, that renaissance died lonely and neglected.
Dr. John Kiggundu, medical doctor, 47, June 23, 2025
There is ephemeral fame and there is lasting renown. Only when Dr. Spire John Kiggundu died suddenly from acute heart failure in a hotel in Zzana did we learn he had earned the latter. Hundreds of former patients and caregivers shared fond testimonies this leading gynaecologist had rendered their loved ones. Many recalled how Dr. Kiggundu’s warm bedside manner drew them again and again to the then humble clinic that over a decade would grow into the impressive Henrob Hospital. Those who had never crossed paths with Dr. Kiggundu became aware of him because of the higher public profile of his writer, cartoonist and acerbic social commentator brother Dr. Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, who was thought to have been the one who died.
Muhammadu Buhari, soldier and politician, 82, July 14, 2025
A survivor of Nigeria’s cut throat politics and coups, Buhari was twice president of Nigeria under vastly different circumstances. In 1983 through a coup and in 2015 as a democratically elected candidate. A military man through and through who nonetheless was not averse to making a deal, Buhari found himself at the head of the table several times because he was a consensus builder. Nigeria today, for good or bad, is in part what it is because of his leadership.
Professor Livingstone Luboobi, academician, 80, July 17, 2025
A brilliant academician, Professor Livingstone Luboobi reached the apex of his career as Makerere University Vice Chancellor 2004-2009. Several social commentators consider Luboobi’s tenure as the swan song of intellectual freedom at the university where staff and students actively determined the direction of one of Africa’s premier tertiary institutions. A highly trained mathematician, Luboobi disdained the trappings of his office preferring to hear out differing opinions before making a decision.
Rhoda Nakibuuka Nsibirwa Kalema, politician, 96, August 3, 2025
Born a Buganda Kingdom princess to it’s prime minister Martin Luther Nsibirwa, the wife of a minister William Kalema, herself to become a minister several times and one of two of the first female parliamentarians in Uganda, Rhoda Kalema lived an eventful life. Breaking the glass ceiling several times. Among those, voluntarily retiring from politics, a rarity in this part of the world.
James Musinguzi Garuga, businessman, 72, August 6, 2025
One of the country’s most successful business persons, James Musinguzi Garuga is credited with popularising tea growing in western Uganda. A large part of his fortune came from it too. Garuga would expand his portfolio to include real estate, hospitality and philanthropy. He will, however, be most remembered for supporting the formation of what would become the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party between 1999 and 2001, an opposition party that came closest to challenging President Yoweri Museveni’s iron grip on power since January 1986. Despite this, Garuga remained on amiable terms with Museveni and his government.
Mary Karooro Okurut, writer and politician, 71, August 11, 2025
Before Mary Karooro Okurut entered the political arena in 2004 as a member of parliament representing Bushenyi, she was best known as a novelist (The Invisible Weevil) and an advocate for women’s voices in literature. That and helping found the Uganda Women Writers Association (FEMRITE) is what she was most celebrated for after her sudden death occasioned by complications from a car accident and long neglected cardiovascular disease. Even as a minister, Okurut continued to campaign for more inclusive programmes that brought women and children into leadership. Childless herself, she was nicknamed “Mother Hen” because of her maternal care for all those who came into her orbit.
Jane Goodall, scientist, 91, October 2, 2025
In announcing Jane Goodall’s death, National Geographic (which she had first written for in 1963) described her as a, “primatologist, conservationist, animal advocate, and educator.” She was all that. For most people though, she was friend of the great apes, especially chimpanzees, who to her last breath fought to have them recognised as worth not just saving but respecting as “our cousins.” Her Jane Goodall Institute and other start ups have helped further the education of hundreds of young people all over the world in many scientific fields.
Raila Odinga, politician, 80, October 15, 2025
The man everyone thought would be Kenyan President one day but did not because he was continually thwarted by craftier rivals. Despite that, Odinga was one of Kenya’s most important power brokers to the day he died. His decision to “work with” William Ruto after the June-July 2025 protests may have saved that presidency. This was not a first for Odinga, whose family has welded immense political prestige since before 1963 independence. His painful decision to concede the disputed 2007 presidential election many observers thought he had won against Mwai Kibaki saved Kenya from not only worse ethnic violence but possibly a civil war. Many times, Odinga was challenged to be the “bigger man” to the detriment of his personal ambition and did. In death, the universal mourning his passing attracted demonstrated that rare, political selflessness had not gone unnoticed.
Other deaths that shocked us:
- Nsereko Kyamukungubya Kiwanuka, son of former finance minister Maria Kiwanuka
- Brigadier General Tom Kikoyo Kabuye, soldier and former Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence UPDF
Col. (rtd) Anthony Kyakabale, soldier - D’Angelo, musician
- Nicole Maimuna Tumusiime, teacher and actress (JDC, a DSTV mini series)
- Dick Cheney, politician and former US Vice President
- Jimmy Cliff, musician
- Anicet Ekane, major Cameroonian opposition politician, died in government custody
- Meja Mwangi, writer
X/Twitter: @davidtumusiime
Email: [email protected]
