Masette Kuuya returns to Uganda in coffin

The remains of Prof. Patrick Masette Kuuya, a former minister in the Obote government, have arrived at Entebbe aboard Kenya airlines. Masette Kuuya died from Nairobi where he has been living ever since the Obote govt was overthrown.

Peter Welikhe MP Bubulo West Constituency where Kuuya hails from and Richard Wanda the MP for Bungokho South Constituency and also chairperson Bugisu Parliamentary Caucus, led a team to receive the body.

Hon Patrick Masette Kuuya, son of Abner Walyawula of Sibanga in the current Manafwa district, was the “Bituli Mia” of Dr Apollo Milton Obote’s Second Government (1980 to 1985). “Bituli” in some Ugandan languages means gaps, holes, shapes or openings while “mia” is Kiswahili for a hundred. Bicycle riders and repairers equip in their toolboxes a sheet metal multi-purpose spanner they call “bituli mia”, a must-have with many gaps, holes, shapes or openings —  though, of course, not quite a hundred.

Born in 1946, Masette Kuuya was by 1980 Member of Parliament (MP) for Mbale South-West Constituency, Minister of Rehabilitation, ruling Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party treasurer,  National Council of Sports (NCS) chairperson and managing director of his multiplicity of private businesses grouped as Sibanga Transport Company (Sitra), Wanale Quick Bus Services (WQBS) and Masette and Brothers (Mass Bros) —  thus making him a “Bituli Mia” of sorts.

In social life, Masette was proprietor of the Mbale Club that served modern brew in Mbale’s Senior Quarters but was as well patron of Ndolelele, a think tank based on the malwa (local millet brew) model on Nambozo Road at Nkoma, near the current site of the Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU).

It is not even clear whether he had formally retired from the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), the force with which he came fighting from exile in 1979, when he fled back in July 1985.