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By Mulengera Reporters
For the last 20 years preceding his death last week, says his daughter Miriam Jiji, fallen Senior Council Peter Medard Mulira was on medication for the Parkinson disease. This condition deteriorated and became even more complicated to manage when a stroke came into the picture. Simultaneously, he also suffered dementia!
Mulira, who was an uncle to the Kabaka, had six children but Jiji had a unique closeness to him and indeed she was the one in constant touch with the team of doctors at Mulago Hospital, inside whose ICU the old man (who died at 85) breathed his last. This final visit/confinement to/at Mulago, which family members thanked for doing such a fantastic job to sustain Peter Mulira for all these years, lasted for two weeks.
Jiji was the one the hospital called and gave the bad news to on Friday and she relayed it to relatives beginning with uncle Dr. Ham Mulira, the only deceased’s sibling remaining. Their dad, the legendary Eldard Mulira who was an icon of Uganda’s independence struggle, had seven children all of whom are now gone, leaving Ham alone.
Jiji recalled how her dad hurt for such a long time not being able to write and use his voice as he was unable to talk nor communicate to anyone in his last days on earth. The pain would be visible in his eyes as he battled this incapacity.
Jiji recalled him repeatedly crying over this limitation the complex health condition occasioned onto him to the extent that he wouldn’t read his daily newspapers every morning, a routine he had adhered to for decades. She told mourners who converged at Namirembe Cathedral to pay tribute to her fallen dad on Tuesday that Peter Mulira was fun to be around because he effortlessly used his voice to crack very good jokes. His health rapidly deteriorated a few months ago upon the death of his beloved son Paul with whom they used to crack jokes. They were both humorous.
Dr. Ham Mulira, the only Eldard’s surviving child out of the original seven siblings, ran through his fallen elder brother’s life and education journey and called upon mourners to pray for him to emotionally go through this very trying moment. He narrated how Peter narrowly survived being killed by operatives from Idi Amin’s State Research Bureau in the early 1970s after First Lady Janet Museveni’s uncle John Wyclif Kazoora fled the country and left him with Paul Ruhindi to run his vibrant and lucrative legal practice in Kampala. The two had been Kazoora’s mentees, having previously graduated from law school.
Peter survived because that fateful morning, he had stepped out to go to Court when the menacing SRB operatives (who he met on the building on his way out) stormed the law firm premises and took away Counsel Ruhindi who has never been seen again. The Amin regime operatives always felt threatened with prominent people and that’s the reason the SRB hunted down Kazoora and subsequently those he delegated to run the law firm in his absence.
Peter Mulira (who did his P1-secondary education at Budo) subsequently fled to Nairobi where he briefly lived with his paternal auntie Lydia before starting work at the East African Community. It was while working for the EAC that Peter Mulira met Lady Diana who was to be his wife and mother of his children for more than 50 years.
He had earlier on completed his legal studies in the UK. In his PLE, Peter was the best in the whole country. Ham told mourners that this corroborates the widely held view that his brother was super intelligent. The leadership of CoU had nominated him to go for priesthood in the US but he declined because he didn’t feel that to be his calling.
His children Jiji, Olga, Nandy/Nandawula, Oscar, PP are all well-educated and doing very well. Olga and Nandy live in the US from where they have had to travel to come home to send off their beloved dad.
A representative from the Ham Mukasa Sekibobo family of Mukono/Kyaggwe (who were the deceased’s maternal uncles) illustrated Peter Mulira’s strong family background from both the paternal and maternal side. Flanked by aunties and other relatives, the representative narrated the close relationship between the Muliras and Kabaka Mutebi whose queen Nagginda was present for the church service.
Prince David Wasajja, Mutebi’s most known brother, was also present besides a powerful delegation from Mengo, the seat of Buganda Kingdom where for years Peter Mulira served as a Minister. He was also celebrated for being a strong advocate of Federo and Kabaka’s right to own and have power over land under the Mailo arrangement.
Dr. Edward Kayondo, the very humorous Emeritus President of the Budo alumni association, also spoke. He narrated how Peter Mulira was a well accomplished member of the Budo family because he had his both primary and secondary education at the Royal hill. He wasn’t merely a Budonian but a member of the Budo family, Dr. Kayondo emphasized.
He reminisced how Peter Mulira’s dad was a teacher at the same academic institution as early as the 1920s. Peter himself headed the alumni association during the 1970s and 80s. He also served on the school’s Board of Governors. All Eldard Mulira’s children (6 of them) went to Budo except one (Sarah who died in the UK during the COVID period).
Kayongo also enumerated some of Peter Mulira’s OBs at Budo including Enock, James Makumbi, Yona, Edward Nsubuga and Jimmy Mugambe Kiwanuka whose wheel chair-confined widow and son Kiwanuka Kiryowa (the current AG) were in Church too.
Kiryowa, who represented the government and seemed pensive about the explosive session Parliament was to have in the afternoon to pass the Sovereignty Protection Bill, spoke generously and respectfully about Peter Mulira. He said the fact that his mum insisted on being wheeled into the Cathedral to be present shows the extent to which the Peter Mulira family and his are connected.
He recalled how Peter Mulira remained a true friend to his late dad since their days at Budo. KK recalled how it was Mulira, as a lawyer, who worked on his dad’s will and ensured the same was strictly adhered to. KK thanked Lady Diana for being such a good auntie to him and his other siblings.
Having done his clerkship and earliest years of his legal practice at Mulira & Co Advocates, Kiryowa confessed he wouldn’t be the great lawyer and the AG he is today if it was not the generous and strict mentorship and training he directly received from Senior Counsel Peter Mulira immediately after leaving law school. He repeatedly referred to him as “Mr. Mulira,” which is how they used to address him those years at the law firm.
Having been at the same law firm as of 1998, KK recalled Mulira’s role in the Tinyefuza vs. AG case which was the first time the provisions of the 1995 Constitution were being tested in the Constitutional Court.
He said that Tinyefuza case demonstrated to him the extent to which Peter Mulira was an excellent scholar and Constitutional lawyer. He confessed that Peter Mulira was a standard bearer of Uganda’s legal fraternity and celebrated him for being a courageous and very principled lawyer who never compromised on his beliefs regardless of the risk.
He also said there was never a lawyer who understood and tested the provisions of the Expropriated Asians Properties Act like Peter Mulira did. He confessed that it was from Peter Mulira that he learnt the fact that the duty of any prudent lawyer is first of all to the law, secondly to the client and finally to Court.
In a bid to demonstrate the extent to which Peter Mulira was an ideal human being before both God and man (when it comes to enforcing justice & doing what is right), KK made reference to the holy scriptures under Proverbs 21:3. He also thanked Bishops Moses Banja and Hannington Mutebi for all the good things they said about his fallen mentor Peter Mulira during the Church service.
Other speakers included ex-Buganda Katikkiro JB Walusimbi who served in the same Kabaka cabinet with Peter Mulira in the early years of the Kingdom’s restoration under Mulwanyamuli. Walusimbi also spoke on behalf of old friends with whom Mulira grew up and did charitable causes. Walusimbi was flanked by members of Senior Citizens Club, Kifufu Club, Book Club and NUK club to all of which Mulira activity belonged.
Walusimbi recalled how Peter loved his drink but always first spared time to analyze for them major events in the news before getting down to indulge himself. The gracefully ageing Collin Sentongo, a leading friend and advisor of Kabaka Mutebi, was also part of this group and stood right behind him as Walusimbi eulogized their mutual friend. Walusimbi also recalled how Mulira would always be the MC strictly enforcing time at members’ social gatherings and thanked Sr Counsel James Sebugenyi, who was the MC at the Cathedral, for steering the Tuesday tribute-paying session with the type of punctuality that Sr Counsel Peter Mulira would have desired to see.
Other Rotarians who spoke well about Peter Mulira included Rotary International Director Emmanuel Katongole and Noah Wamala Nyanzi. Katongole recalled Peter Mulira’s generous contributions towards charitable causes Rotarians initiated including the blood bank at Mengo hospital. Katongole said he had no words to adequately quantify the loss Uganda registered in Peter Mulira’s passing.
Noah Wamala Nyanzi, who is the father of Malaika Nyanzi, reminisced the charitable causes Peter Mulira generously embraced under the Rotary Club of Kampala West since the 1980s including the cancer run, the mwana mugimu project at Mulago, road safety initiatives and the Nakisunga intervention.
Oweek Noah Wamala Nyanzi added that even when he had visibly become frail and deserved to stay at home and rest, Mzee Peter Mulira always insisted to come around and participate in Rotary activities. He also sarcastically recalled how the deceased advised him to concentrate on his art paintings and keep away from singing whenever he attempted to join him and others in doing Church choir-related work. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
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