Blasio ‘Joseph’ Tamale Mirundi, 60 has been a man of many colours from his humble journalistic-political road where he started as a street newspaper vendor 40 years ago to become a household name, as virulent NRM and President Museveni critic-turned hatchet man, dying disgruntled saying he was betrayed. His family says he rejected the name Blasio. Lately, he had become banished from mainstream traditional media to the dark private social media platforms as a guru of sorts with a penchant for unrestrained attacks against NRM palace insiders he said ousted him from State House where he served years as presidential press secretary.

Ebullient Tamale had a knack for annoying and disparaging real or perceived adversaries, sometimes he left one thinking that he was a dog of war because he could overnight turn guns blazing on yester allies without much qualm. For some reason, Tamale couldn’t divest himself from spreading conspiracy theories about many things including false claims that Uganda’s oil is already sold off by a shadowy cabal he called ‘mafias.’ He railed against corruption and political patronage in NRM from yet a major beneficiary, only on occasions it didn’t serve him directly. 

A thorn in the flesh of many, we considered each other friend but fought pitched battles when still on different political aisle. In 1988, as a reporter in Munno, a Catholic run newspaper, they wrote a false story alleging that nine trainees had died of rabies in Kyankwanzi School of political education to scare people from attending what the reactionary groups dubbed ‘‘communist brainwashing”.

During a presidential press conference in 1994 Tamale called Museveni’s vow to end LRA rebellion by that December a bluff each betting two million shillings which Tamale won, later offered as State House scholarship for him to study a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication at Makerere university. President Museveni grew fond of Tamale’s legion of the day among them Victoria Namusisi, Mohammed Katende, Teddy Busulwa, Haruna Kanabi, Michael Wakabi among others he derisively called “failed fishmongers” trying their hands in journalism.

Wafula Oguttu and Charles Onyango-Obbo who viewed themselves as educated and enlightened called them “quacks” leading to the crusade to enact the Press and Journalists Statute 1995, which imposed a university degree as minimum academic qualification to practice which many of them took up although don’t openly acknowledge.

When the Citizen, Munno, and Ngabo newspapers to which Tamale was associated all folded up in 1994, many in that legion got stuck. Some joined Dr Paul Ssemogerere’s floundering political career that crushed with the 1996 presidential election, from where Sam Kutesa and Moses Byaruhanga became Tamale’s benefactors. They recruited him into elect-YKM 2001 volunteer groups from where then PPS Amelia Kyambadde tapped him to become one of Museveni’s most vocal attack dogs and hatchet men, joining yours truly, already an old hand.

A covetous reader, researcher and man of both pen and tongue, handy assets he deployed in equal measure to neutralize our adversaries in FDC, DP, UPC, NUP and others hiding behind religious and cultural institutions. Tamale knew and understood Buganda’s history and culture, as well as UPC and DP political rumblings, and explain them like the back of his hands. He was hard to fault or ignore on facts, and among the few bold journalists able to openly take down Mufti Ramadhan Mubajje, Archbishops Stephen Mugalu Kazimba and late Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, Amama Mbabazi or Kizza Besigye in their heydays when he thought they were undercutting President Museveni.

He and I shared the same view that Buganda doesn’t have a king, but a cultural leader, celebrated mostly for self-aggrandizement and social appeasement. Tamale’s common thread was that he didn’t hold back, and whatever he did, he did it with hyperbole. Rest well JTM.