BOBI WINE

I thank all people who came in thousands to bid farewell to our brother, HON. SSEGIRINYA MUHAMMAD. Below is my message to the mourners! Ladies and gentlemen, Fellow mourners! We gather today, to say farewell to a great man. A man who rose from the poorest of backgrounds to become the talk of Kampala, the talk of Buganda, and the talk of Uganda and beyond. A man who was small in stature but with a very big heart. A man who did not attain so much education and yet possessed great knowledge. He was not an economist and yet he understood the economy of the boda boda rider, the mutembeyi, the woman in the market. A man who joked a lot and yet was very serious on the causes concerning our country. A man who came from right here in Kadugala village and yet died as a national hero. We gather to say farewell to a self-made man. A man who rose through the ranks to become a famous Member of Parliament, and yet did not allow fame to get to his head. Even when he rose to the highest positions in society, he remained the humble Ssegirinya. Unlike many politicians who love to be addressed with big titles, even when they're doing nothing or working against the people, Ssegirinya never cared about titles. You would call him Ssegi and he was fine with it. That is the man we're sending off today. Hon. Ssegirinya said that I should speak for five hours at his funeral, but I am not even sure I can even take thirty minutes. His dying wish however, meant so much to me. It meant the deep sense of trust that he had in me as his friend and leader. He trusted that I would speak the kind of words he would love to be said on his final day. It was very humbling to me that he said that even if no one else spoke, I should speak for all that time. But I know that Ssegirinya was loved by so many people, which is why I couldn't deny them the opportunity to speak about him. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, today as we see Ssegirinya for the very last time, I will say everything for Ssegirinya and very little for myself. This means that whoever has offended me as an individual and was expecting me to talk about you in any way, today you’re wrong. Ssegirinya Mohammad ‘Eddoboozi lye Kyebando’ is a man I knew many years ago as a radio caller and later as a city councillor. I had never met him personally until I was running for MP in Kyadondo East in 2017. Among the many opposition politicians who fully supported me was Ssegirinya even when his party - then FDC - had a candidate. It is then that we built a comradeship that, I hope, will last even for the next generations. We shared so much in common with SSegirinya - born in villages before moving to the ghettos in the city. And how, like me, he did not dwell on that past but turned his life around. I believe that is why I understood him, and he understood me. Tubade twetegeela. I would look into comrade Ssegirinya's eyes and know that even as he joked a lot, he was deeply concerned about the common people. I saw his dreams and how determined he was to make them become real. I saw how much he represented everything we are as common people. In 2020, as we prepared for the 2021 election, we, as the People Power Movement, were faced with a test. It was a very tough test. We had the party's Organising Secretary, an incumbent MP, and other seasoned politicians interested in the Kawempe North seat. When the results from the ground survey came back, Ssegirinya scored over 80% from the responses of the people. The Organising Secretary lodged a petition, and we sent another team. The results came back the same way. We resisted all manner of attempts to overturn the results and insisted that we must follow People Power because that is our power. As I said the other day, some politicians came to me complaining. They asked how we could choose a riffraff over seasoned politicians with a lot of education. 1/