By Benjamin Mwibo
Human Rights Activist and Businessman Frank Gashumba has predicted that Kamala Harris will become the first United States Female president while describing people that inspire him in life and why he puts their photos in his office.
Gashumba mentioned a list of these people during an exclusive interview with a YouTube channel, “Cavton Music Uganda,” last week.
Below is a list of people with their history and who inspired businessman, Frank Gashumba.
His Parents.
Gashumba says he is deeply inspired by both his parents. “My mother is the Rock and foundation of our family, she is currently living in Masaka at Villa village.”It is unfortunate that Gashumba’s father , “Mzee Gashumba Senior,” succumbed to cancer in 2019.
It is also important to note that Gashumba’s family right from the great great grand family relocated from Rwanda to Uganda in 1923 and have since lived in Uganda.
Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
He a Ugandan military officer. He is the son of President Yoweri Museveni and currently serves as the Chief of Defence Forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
He is also the chairman of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), a pressure group lobbying for his presidency.
According to Gashumba, ‘ Gen. Muhoozi is my boss in Uganda and the next president of Uganda who inspires me.”
Late Speaker Jacob Oulanya.
He was a Ugandan agricultural economist, lawyer, and politician, who served as the Speaker of the 11th Parliament of Uganda from 2021 to 2022.
He was elected to that position on 24 May 2021, after defeating his tenacious rival the then incumbent Speaker Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga.
He served as Deputy Speaker of the Ugandan parliament, from May 2011 until May 2021.
Oulanyah was also the member of parliament representing the Omoro County constituency, Omoro District, Acholi sub-region, in the Uganda’s Northern Region.
Gashumba indicates that the friendship between him and the late speaker was so deep to an extent they could have a conversation in his bedroom balcony at his home , whenever he invited him. “May his Soul Rest in Peace,” he noted.
Former U.S president Barrack Obama.
He is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. As a member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history.
Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
With Obama becoming a US president, “ we learn that everything is possible on earth.” Says Gashumba.
President Paul kagame.
He is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the President of Rwanda since 2000. He was previously a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel armed force which invaded Rwanda in 1990.
The RPF was one of the parties of the conflict during the Rwandan Civil War and the armed force which ended the Rwandan genocide.
He was considered Rwanda’s de facto leader when he was Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the vice presidential post was abolished.
Gashumba regards to president Kagame as the only certified great lakes president. “ He supported the NRA Bush war together with late Rwigyema but later retreated to Rwanda and started a war to liberate Rwanda right from Gatuna to Kigali.
Late Maj. Gen. Fred Rwigyema
He was a Rwandan politician and military officer. He was the founder of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a political and military force formed by Rwandan Tutsi exile, descendants of those forced to leave the country after the 1959 Hutu Revolution.
He was killed in action on 2nd October in 1990 at matimba hill in Rwanda two days after the start of war to liberate Rwanda.
He participated in Uganda- Tanzania war, Mozambique war of independence, the Uganda Bush war, war in Uganda of 1986- 1994, and also the Rwandan civil war.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
He is a Ugandan politician and military officer who is the ninth and current president of Uganda since 1986. His government is considered autocratic. Museveni was born to cattle farmers and attended missionary schools.
While studying political science and economics at the University of Dar es Salaam (B.A., 1970) in Tanzania, he became chairman of a leftist student group allied with African liberation movements.
When Idi Amin came to power in Uganda in 1971, Museveni returned to Tanzania in exile.There he founded the Front for National Salvation, which helped overthrow Amin in 1979.Museveni held posts in transitional governments and in 1980 ran for president of Uganda.
When the elections, widely believed to have been rigged, were won by Milton Obote, Museveni and former president Yusufu Lule formed the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Museveni led the NRM’s armed group, the National Resistance Army, which waged a guerrilla war against Obote’s regime.
The resistance eventually prevailed, and on January 26, 1986, Museveni declared himself president of Uganda. He was elected to the post on May 9, 1996, and his backers won control of the National Assembly in legislative elections held the following month. Since then he has been the elected president of Uganda to date.
Late President Amin Dada.
Idi Amin Dada Oumee, was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979.
Amin was born to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother and In 1946, he joined the King’s African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army as a cook.
He rose to the rank of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels and then the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya.
When Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, Amin remained in the army, rising to the position of major and being appointed commander of the Uganda Army in 1965.
He later became aware that Ugandan President Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, so he launched the 1971 Ugandan coup detat and declared himself president.
During his years in power, Amin shifted from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable support from Israel to being backed by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany.
In 1972, Amin expelled Asians, a majority of whom were Indian-Ugandans, leading India to sever diplomatic relations with his regime.
According to Gashumba, Amin was a true pan africanist, a patriotic to an extent that one loved his nation like he did. If Amin didn’t take a decision he took in in 1972 , some Ugandans would not be in Uganda now.
Those who never knew his history have always written bad about him , but I recommend to them a book titled, “ the other side of Amin,” by Ssebunya.
He adds that by the time Amin left power, Uganda had 28 airplanes in 1979, he also built the Uganda airlines, the conference center among others.
Late President Nelson Mandela
He was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.
He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.
His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
Ret. Col.Dr. Kizza Besigye.
He is a Ugandan physician, politician, and former military officer of the Uganda People’s Defence Force.
He served as the president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) political party and was an unsuccessful candidate in Uganda’s 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 presidential elections, losing all of them to the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has been president of Uganda since 26 January 1986.
The results of the 2006 elections were contested in court, and the court found massive rigging and disenfranchisement.
Besigye allowed an early internal FDC election for a successor president, which took place on 24 November 2012.
He is the only credible opposition leader in Uganda , according to Gashumba. He faced all sorts of torture by the government and even lost his brother due to politics.
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu.
“She teaches us acts of humanity and helping the needy, this Inspires me,” Gashumba.
Mother Teresa was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, she was raised in a devoutly Catholic family.
At the age of 18, she moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto and later to India, where she lived most of her life and carried out her missionary work.
On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The anniversary of her death, 5th September, is now observed as her feast day.