THE FALL OF A GREAT INTELLECTUAL

UGANDA mourns the death of one of its most brilliant and committed leaders. Brig. Noble Mayombo, the permanent secretary of defence and a close aide to President Yoweri Museveni, passed away at 3:00pm yesterday in a Kenyan hospital, at the age of 42. Born in Fort Portal, Mayombo, who held the post of Chief of Military Intelligence from 2000 to 2004, succumbed to severe pancreatitis at Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, where he had been flown on Sunday night after suffering multi-organ failure. Grief and shock gripped the nation as the news of his demise filtered through. Both the Government and the Opposition united to mourn and pay tribute to the fallen soldier. Many eulogised him in moving tributes, describing him as “a talented and brilliant young man” brimming with potential, robbed by death of the opportunity to serve the nation to his fullest, leaving behind a huge void. Though news of his critical condition was no secret, his death took many by surprise. In a press statement, defence minister Dr. Crispus Kiyonga yesterday announced “with deep sorrow the untimely death of Brig. Nogle Mayombo.” Burial arrangements, he said, would be communicated later. Illness struck on Thursday evening. At the end of a busy day in which Mayombo chaired several meetings, he started throwing up on the way home. He was rushed and admitted to Kololo Hospital, where he spent the night complaining of excruciating stomach pain. On Friday morning, he was transferred to the International Hospital Kampala for further tests and taken into the intensive care unit, where he slid into unconsciousness in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Doctors at the hospital diagnosed fulminant pancreatitis and put him on a life-support machine. A team of over 20 Cuban, Israeli and Ugandan doctors attended to him, including the cardiac team that carried out the first open-heart surgery in Uganda. He never again regained consciousness. As he suffered multi-organ failure and the required apparatus was not available in Uganda, he was flown in the presidential jet to Nairobi at 10:00pm on Sunday night and admitted to Aga Khan Hospital. His condition slightly improved yesterday morning, triggering optimism that he would pull through, only to end in tragedy. Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leader Dr. Kizza Besigye said he was moved by the news of Mayombo’s death. “It is obviously shocking. To lose such a young man who has been active all this time. I have had time to disagree with the system that he has vigorously served but I recognise that he was a very intelligent young man who was caught up in a wrong system,” Besigye told The New Vision by telephone. “It is a pity that he has died at such a tender age without really giving the full positive contribution that he would have been able to. I sympathise with the family, his brothers whom I have worked with and Rabwoni Okwiri whom I still work with.” Ofwono Opondo, the deputy spokesman of the National Resistance Movement, described Mayombo’s departure as disturbing. “It is chilling that we have lost a person of such caliber, more so at such a young age,” he said. “It is not easy these days to find clean people holding public office but he was one of the few we had around. It is going to be difficult to replace him.” He added that in some Movement circles, Mayombo had been eyed as a probable successor to President Yoweri Museveni. “Some people were already beginning to think that he had the qualities of Mzee (Museveni) and were seeing him as a probable replacement,” Ofwono disclosed. Former New Vision Editor-In-Chief and Managing Director, William Pike, described Mayombo as a hardworking man with great potential. “He was a hardworking young man with a great career ahead of him. I had a good working relation with him. Even in difficult times when I was leaving, we were always on friendly terms,” Pike said of the man who was also the board chairman of The New Vision. “He had a wonderful sense of humour which livened up even the most complicated of situations. We have lost a talented young man.” He noted that Mayombo had sacrificed himself to the army and the Movement, over-straining himself by working up to 20 hours a day. “If Mayombo was guilty of anything, then he was guilty of over-working. He pushed himself beyond the limit. The body can only take so much and maybe this presents a lesson to all of us that we need to take time off to relax after work.” And in Juba, the Government delegation to the peace talks, expressed sorrow over the loss of a “special officer”. “We are really sad. To me it is like the loss of Oyite Ojok. He was a brilliant and outstanding UPDF officer,” the deputy leader of the Government team, Okello Oryem, said. “It is a loss to Uganda, the UPDF, the Movement and his wife and family. Only God knows why a person like Mayombo should lose his life at this time to a rather unknown sickness.” News of his demise drew sympathy from all over Africa and the world. Congolese opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, said from Lisbon, Portugal: “I am saddened by his death. He was a man of great vision and a pan-Africanist.” Another Congolese leader, Roger Lumbala, said from Kinshasa: “I worked very closely with him and knew him as a bright and committed officer. He advised the Congolese to unite if they were to develop and rebuild their country.” At his home in Bukoto, vehicles jammed the roads as grief-stricken mourners gathered to console the family. Mayombo’s father, the Rev. Canon Rabwoni, and his brothers and sisters received the sympathisers. Defence minister Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, defence state minister Ruth Nankabirwa, security minister Amama Mbabazi, deputy Army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, and several other UPDF officers and government officials passed by to pay their condolences.