Senior Presidential Advisor on media Relations , John Nagenda, 84, is dead.
According to the minister in charge of the presidency Milly Babalanda , Nagenda breathed his last at Medipal International Hospital in Kampala on Saturday afternoon where he had been admitted for weeks.
“I regret to announce the passing on of Senior Presidential Advisor on Media Matters, Mzee John Nagenda, who has passed on at Medipal in Kampala. He was unique, principled and knowledgeable. His services will be dearly missed,” she tweeted.
Nagenda was a former cricketer who played one One Day International for East Africa in the 1975 World Cup. Nagenda first started playing cricket at Kings’ College Budo in the 1950s and went on to play cricket for Uganda.
In 1975, Nagenda appeared in one first-class cricket match in England. He was also a writer of fiction and poetry in the 1960s and is regarded as having been one of the pioneers of writing in East Africa. Nagenda studied English literature with such luminaries as James Ngugi, later to be known as Ngugi wa Thiongo.
Nagenda’s political career started in the 1980s when he became a member of the National Resistance Movement’s external wing. He later evolved into a presidential advisor on the media in 1989. Until last year, Nagenda authored One Man’s Week column in the New Vision. He later compiled this into a book, also known as One Man’s Week: Unreserved Wisdom, which was published in 2019.
Nagenda’s passing is a loss to the Ugandan community, particularly to those who knew him personally and to the literary and sporting communities in Uganda and beyond. His contributions to cricket and literature will be remembered for years to come.
