OBITUARY: Joseph Tamale Mirundi dies at 60

Uganda’s blunt social philosopher rests, leaving no friend not honoured and no enemy not punished

OBITUARY | NNANDA KIZITO SSERUWAGI | Rarely in the course of time and the spread of geography has humanity experienced the presence of a man like Joseph Tamale Mirundi. He was an oddity – a misfit. I found it difficult to listen to him in the later parts of his life of public commentary because I felt his political language had crossed over from its quintessential eccentricity to utter vulgarity. What I did not lose was the clarity that most lost or never appreciated about him – that he was above all a philosopher.

Many who perceived Mirundi as a drunkard or a “barking dog” for hire by politicians, business people and even pastors, miss the software of the man. At his core, Tamale was someone who reflected deeply about things. That is what philosophy is. That is who philosophers are.

Mirundi, like many people in poor societies like Uganda, was a misused – and abused talent. He served his intellect to the purposes offered by the economic structures that he found himself confined to. Born in ancient Greece, in the age of Socrates, Aristotle, Zeno, Heraclitus, Empedocles and others, Tamale would quite easily have emerged as one of the greatest philosophers in history.

He did not make obvious the common nonsense that society finds rational. He questioned norms, not merely in speech but also conduct. He lived like “a madman.” He was the only man who enjoyed popular space in Buganda while insulting the Kingdom and its highest royal persons. When the lawyer, Male Mabirizi, sued the Kabaka, Tamale was the only public figure who supported his unconventional legal action. Society might have consciously reproached Tamale’s “madness,” but it subconsciously licensed him as a social philosopher to practice his craft. That’s why for the most slanderous things he said about people in the highest offices in both the central government and Mengo, nobody sued.

It was even interesting to see the official government Twitter (X) handle, the official NRM Party handle, and several Ministers and senior public servants honour his service to the country, yet if anybody listened, his “service” was vicious criticism. He indeed never merely criticized but rather insulted all these institutions. Why did he enjoy that license to abuse, offend, and denigrate everybody?

At the risk of being accused of overstretching his significance, let me suggest that Tamale Mirundi was comparable to the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates. Tamale argued that “you Ugandans don’t read. So, it doesn’t make sense for me to write for you big books…” Indeed, many Ugandan “elites” kindly refer to Tamale’s work as pamphlets or street magazines. But he insisted that they were books. Unlike Tamale, Socrates never wrote at all, yet 2,415 years later, we still reference his knowledge. The most we know is what his students especially Plato wrote about their master.

The nature of society Tamale was born into confronted unique circumstances and was defined by peculiar contradictions. So, it might be difficult for those who have a Westernized epistemic view of a philosopher to understand Tamale as one.

Whereas he might not write and command global attention like Yuval Noah Harari, Slavoj Zizék or Mahmood Mamdani, Tamale was as much a philosopher, but one who was aware of his audience. He was not a philosopher for the World Economic Forum audience. He was a philosopher for millions of boda boda riders and taxi touts in a dilapidated third-world city. He communicated to housewives in Nansana and Kasubi. He clearly knew they would not access him on CNN. So, he did not, and neither was he able to package himself like Noam Chomsky for CNN. He understood that his audience is on Ugandan TikTok and YouTube. If Chomsky wakes up every day to write, Tamale woke up every day to record interviews with countless young and old vloggers to make content for his audience. He had the intellectual rigour and self-discipline to show up on time for his radio programs on different stations for many years. And whereas his books might have been thirty pages each, they were many, and on different subjects. Altogether, his books would make up a solid text for a “conventional” book.

In 2014, I was a little boy in senior two, but with a politically conscious mind. I used to listen to Tamale Mirundi regularly. So, I gained a keen interest in his books. I remember walking to the Aristoc Booklex branch along Kampala Road on a Monday morning on the first day of the term on my way to school. After looking for his book, “Understanding Mafia Politics,” in vain, I inquired from one of the attendants if he could trace it for me. He laughed, then kindly led me out of the bookshop and pointed towards the furthest end of the street, next to Diamond Trust Bank. He said, “…you see that brown lady, seated on the ground vending Newspapers?” I said “Yes.” He said, “…go to her, she will help you.”

When I approached the lady, she quickly pulled out the book from a big brown sack carrying several titles by Tamale Mirundi. I was so surprised. I asked her how much the book cost, she said, “Only 5k!” I offered to buy two more titles, making three books at less than Uganda sh. 15,000/=. I was initially disappointed that Tamale Mirundi’s “books” are sold in sacks on the streets. I imagined that any author worth his name must have a book on a clean shelf at Aristoc Bookshop. However, over the years, I appreciated the complexity of Tamale Mirundi’s simplicity. He was not just a lousy NRM mouthpiece on the radio. He was a thinker who reflected deeply on the nature of his society, and his place in it.

Xanthippe, Socrates’ wife described him as “a good-for-nothing idler who brought to his family more notoriety than bread.” History remembers Socrates as a lousy father and husband, who neglected his family while “misguiding” the youth of his generation. Mirundi ticks these boxes, not as an irresponsible family man but as a somewhat public nuisance who made his family famous.

His eccentric life might have bellied out his intelligence, but the record of his interviews on hundreds of media channels will give him immortality. He must have reflected on this too, given his insistence on how to be addressed.

He was Yozefu Tamale Mirundi, born in 1964 at Matale village in Rakai District. He was the 9th child of Mr. John Mirundi and Mrs. Molly Mirundi. He was an independent intellectual and a popular participant in many talk shows on both radio and television. He was a self-made man, who rose through the ranks from being a newspaper vendor to working as the Press Secretary to President Yoweri Museveni.

Tamale was a restless ball of energy, who, even on his deathbed at Kisubi Hospital was still rumbling with thoughts and ambition. Whenever he fell sick, he quickly left the hospital against the advice of doctors and addressed the media in his frail element. He would say that keeping away from his journalist friends and audience would kill him faster than sickness.

Tamale also shares similarities with another popular character in philosophy, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla was a Roman general who became the first to seize power through force. Tamale was as unique in his character and fate as Sulla. Like Sulla, Tamale was born poor but revenged upon life by defining himself as rich and arrogant.

When he conquered money, Tamale used it to serve his appetites without restraint, just as Sulla did. His chief reward was a bottle of beer. But he also found time, between attacking Mengo and NRM, to raise his children as the most loving father in the world would. He was also a jolly man, funny to listen to, even when you did not like what he said. Where Sulla filled Rome with his laughter and made a hundred thousand enemies, Tamale filled Ugandan radio, television and TikTok with humour, but also made thousands of enemies while at it.

Lastly, what I find most inspiring in Tamale is that he lived on his terms. He lived full throttle like he knew someday he would be dead. So, he made living worthwhile by living as he deemed, without budging into the dictates of society, religion or political authority. He was the archetypical embodiment of a free man. There is no friend he never honoured, and no enemy he never punished. He registered all his scores alive. He said it all before he died. He leaves behind no debt to anybody. What a man!

Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi is a lawyer