MY UBC CHRONICLES MY FIGHTS WITH THE NEW VISION Folks, in the commercial broadcasting world, broadcasters do take commercial breaks for jingles and what forth to generate income or hits. I just did the same. The jingles on Mr. Kihika were meant to generate hits (you are strongly advised to read the articles in the link below for these chronicles. Kumbe, at what point did we pause for the break? Where were we? Anyone remind me? My memory often fails, not after the anguish thats been meted out upon me, wena!! aha, my brains are beginning to roll back into action. Just brace yourselves for the continued sequel. The New Vision had taken to specializing on reports of UBC matters. We were undergoing restructuring, internal assessments and interviews were being conducted by a team I had retained from Uganda Management Institute. It was led by Mr. Dennis Kalebbo its (UMI) ex Director General. The scores of many staff were dead shocking (I am putting it rather politely- I will spare you the details) . Some senior staff were bound to be rendered redundant as it indeed happened following this exercise. I made changes in all departments, offloading nearly all senior management I found there (in accordance with the UMI report) and replacing them with long down trodden juniors (who scored highly in the interviews) . Its at this point that temperatures hit record high - 800 degrees to be exact! Blast furnace type that moulds iron ore. They began concort stories for the papers. At this point in time Uganda had been plunged into massive load shedding lasting upto 72 hrs and we were finding it impossible to operate on generators for all our stations in the country (look out for how I manoeuvred with Paul Mare of Umeme). The stories were spined to create the impression we at UBC were incompetent. Nearly every day there was a Vision reporter assigned for UBC stories. Enter William Pike! Eureka!!! Voila, I had found the source of deep interest in news on UBC (news in Uganda speak is negative stuff, right?). The source of Pikes interest in UBC is an interesting one (its only those who dont know Pikes background and as to how and why he was appointed and fired from Vision who take him for granted. Dude is entrenched- often consulted by western diplomatic cables) . Mr. Pike had recommended a British national Kari Blackburn (may her soul have eternal repose) to be UBC MD. Pike is not aware I have this detail. As to how it got to me, stay tuned. Kari born of a Norwegian and English wealthy couple was gifted in languages. She spoke over 10 languages and had risen to head the Kiswahili service of the BBC and later Africa service. I knew her and her extended family at personal level (a fact not known beyond family) and had travelled with her mum for holiday in Kisoro. I actually got to know them through Myra Ochwo my Auntie (this the beauty that Uganda has become. No one would connect this Japadhola to a Munyarwanda /Mufumbira) . Myra had this rather crazy idea of match making me with Karis daughter (well, there is no gainsay in pursuing this bit of the narrative - we both married to different persons -nuf said lol). Kari had travelled the width and breadth of Africa and had interacted with numerous academics I had met over the years. We shared an interest, etymology of Kiswahili words which in our discussions I traced to Isizulu and Xhosa (I schooled in South Africa for the record). At the BBC she earned 120 K£ so the prospect of earning 3 M UGX a month was not attractive. (Yes, the take home of UBC MD was 3m!). Other persons approached for the position turned down the offer, I believe for similar reasons. Justin Zake formerly Deputy DG URA was one such person. Its in this setting that I was head hunted from the Broadcasting Council where I was Legal Council to kickstart UBC as care taker MD (I had been given a tenured senior academic position at UCU Law School at the same time to which I resigned from UBC to be full time) as care taker MD I was in acting capacity (I rarely refer to myself as Acting MD- it got no swag mehn! Lol) and I had no intentions whatsoever to extend my kisanja. Amidst all this the vision made it routine to discuss UBC in their editorial meetings. I got details of every discussion on us every day. I had to devise means of settling this bunkenke. As to how I penetrated the Vision editorial boardroom and made its staffers get into a spot of bother over UBC and its properties .. .... .... in next episode
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 05:31:56 +0000
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