SAD: Andrew Mwenda loses ‘son’

Veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda is mourning the demise of his friend and ‘son’ Evans Kalanzi.

Kalanzi died in a motor accident along Gulu Road.

In the following piece, Mwenda narrates what he went through with Kalanzi.

Evans Kalanzi, an entrepreneur gone to early | A tribute by Andrew M. Mwenda

On Sunday, my friend Jeff called to tell me of the sudden death Evans Kalanzi in a motorcar accident along Gulu road. I have known Evans since I was 14, when he was only a kid of five.

The same Jeff had called me on Saturday morning to tell me that Paul Lokech, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, had died suddenly. It was a double tragedy in one weekend that has left me thinking about the meaning of life and of faith.

When I was a young man of 14 beaming with ambition, I met a nice young lady called Akiiki Kevina in Fort Portal. She was a successful business lady with a big shop in town and drove a nice car when very few people did. I have never known how, but we became very good friends.

Akiiki is the mother of Evans; I became a big brother to this little, handsome but shy boy of five. From thence henceforth, Evans and I were United on the heap.

I left Fort Portal to study at Mbarara High School. As fortune would have it, Akiiki began dating someone in Mbarara. So every time she came to visit her boyfriend, Domasi Seruwagi, she also visited me at school, and brought me grab. Later she married Domasi, and shifted to Mbarara. Our friendship was then consolidated. Often I would visit them and send a night of two; and I would play with Evans.

Akiiki later had other kids – Dan, Dora and Daniella, all of whom I used to baby sit, but most especially Dora. But as they grew up it is Evans who kept close contact with me. I got involved in his life so much so that when he finished S4, I got him his first job – with National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) – and that was because it’s then Managing Director, William Muhairwe, is a good friend of mine.

When he went to high school, I was the one who took him to Kiira College Butiki and asked the headmaster, Mr. Mulongo, to give him a vacancy and I register in the school as his dad. When he joined university, I was with him. When he began working, I went with him to report for his first job. When he set up his first business, he called to show it to me. Whatever he did, Evans made it a point to involve me, or at least to keep me informed. Whatever other businesses and activities he got involved in, he always sought my advice even where I was not competent to do so. I helped him make connections with business partners.

If Evans ever felt he had a big brother, I was that person. I was involved in practically every aspect of his life. When he found a girl he wanted to marry, he brought her to me. When they got their first child, I was there. When they got problems, he kept me informed. Sometimes when he was stressed at his home due to the differences he had with his wife, he would come stay with me. When he wanted to separate from her, I was the first person he told even before telling his mum.

When he found his second love, he brought her to me. When he wedded her, he asked me to give a speech at his wedding as his father. At the wedding, I said I would speak as his grand father. I flew from Dubai to Kampala specifically to be at his wedding, arriving very late, because I could not fail to be there.

Evans loved sports and was involved with Vila. In 2016, he brought me the president of Villa and they told me they wanted to meet President Yoweri Museveni. They wanted the president to donate to them a bus. I talked to the president and he accepted to be a guest of honor at a villa event and also to donate the bus. Evans felt proud of my role in his life.

The older Evans was much more different from the young one. The shy boy had grown into a highly confident man, an incredibly ambitious professional and an innovative entrepreneur. In 2018, he brought me a business partner from West Africa and they had been given a banking license. Evans wanted me to talk to Sudir Ruparelia for space in Kingdom Towers for the bank offices.

That was Evans. He always aimed for the skies. There are many kids in whose lives I have been involved and Evans was one of the most successful, the most charismatic and the most enterprising. And he always made a point to recognize my contribution to his life, even though it was small.

My friend Alan Kasuja of BBC fame always says that I have been involved in nurturing young people into successful professionals and entrepreneurs but I don’t talk about it and the public therefore doesn’t know. He always says I should talk about this part of me. I have always refused his advice in large part cause I really think it is those who I have impacted that should say so, not me. Evans did that.

Wherever he went or wherever we met, he told those around us, and with a lot of exaggeration, that I was like a dad to him and had made him what he was. Then there would always ensue a fight between me and him, with me arguing that he gives me much more credit than I deserve and him saying I should not trust to be modest. He never stopped his exaggerated praise of my role in his life.

That was evans: generous, ambitious, smart and driven yet so simple. It is hard to digest his departure. So I ask why God chose to take him when he was at his prime, when he had so much to offer the world, and had only just began!