A teacher for whom the world was an endless playground
David Musoke, the veteran journalist, business news editor, PR consultant, media consultant, Rotarian, husband, father of six and teacher of three generations of university journalism students has died. He collapsed dead on June 8 as he walked out of a conference hall. He was 67.
Had he been allowed another lease on life to take over as president of the Rotary Club of Mengo on June 17, it would just have been another strand to his voluntary contributions.
Over the last decades, he served as chairperson of Parent-Teachers’ Associations (PTA) in various schools including Gayaza Junior, Budo Junior, Makerere College and Busoga College Mwiri, where he finished his secondary education in the 1960s.
A stout, chatty, gentleman standing at just over five feet, Musoke had an opera singers baritone that he used powerfully in news interviews and when indulging in his favourite pastimes; trying to speak to every Ugandan in their mother tongue and making friends.
“I can’t say who dad’s best friend was,” says Musoke’s youngest son David Kezio-Musoke at their home in Kansanga, “because everyone was his friend.” Kezio-Musoke says it’s impossible to say because his dad freely mixed with people of different ages, ranging from children to over seventy year olds.
“The world seemed like one big play ground for him,” says Steven Mwanga, Musoke’s staff colleague at Kampala University. Mwanga said on the fateful morning of June 8, they shared a joke together.
“I met him as I drove to work (at Parliament) and he engaged me in a motor racing competition,” said Mwanga, “Olaba bwennina stamina?” a popular current express that loosely means, “See how strong I am”. But appearances lied. The following day Mwanga would read in the papers that his friend was dead. Musoke collapsed at Hotel Africana where he had gone to pursue another of his little pleasures – debating.
The circumstances of his death, says Musoke’s niece Aisha Bbosa, make the news even harder to deal with. “He died so fast and we even had no time to imagine life without him,” said Aisha, saying she never considered him as an uncle but a friend.
Born in 1944, Musoke graduated from Makerere University in the late 1960s, majoring in economics. He later studied a journalism course at Oxford University by correspondence, before embarking on a long career in teaching, journalism and public relations. He was the first public relations officer of Makerere University.
In his long journalism career, he worked as a correspondent for Reuters and BBC and contributing writer with The Monitor and The East African newspapers. He had a stint with Weekly Topic and for about ten years in the 1990s, he was business editor at The New Vision.
But Musoke was most renowned for his Sunday show on the then Uganda Television (UTV), Focus on Christian Faith, to which he hosted clerics from different Christian denominations to discuss topical social matters. He was also a telecaster at Radio Uganda.
That he taught virtually every practicing journalist in Uganda today makes his mem
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