The government will accord an official burial to former Democratic Party leader Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, who died on November 18th at the age of 90 from his home in Rubaga.
This was announced by the Minister for Presidency, Milly Babirye Babalanda, on Saturday, November 19th.
“H.E. the President has this morning (Saturday) directed that the fallen former DP President General, Hon. Dr. Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, be accorded an official funeral. All arrangements are, accordingly, underway,” Minister Babalanda said.
The deceased shall be laid to rest at his ancestral home in Nattale Nkumba village on November 21, 2022.
Dr. Ssemogerere, contested twice for the presidency and led DP for over 25 years,
He contested for the presidency against UPC’s Dr. Apollo Milton Obote in the controversial 1980 election.
He later became a minister in President Yoweri Museveni’s NRM government, resigned, and contested against President Yoweri Museveni in 1996.
PROFILE
Dr. Ssemogerere was born on February 11th, 1932, at Bumangi, Buggala Island, in the Ssese, and he was baptised on February 18th of the same year.
In 1940, he started formal education at St. John’s Boys Boarding Primary School. He later joined St. Henry’s College Kitovu’s Primary Section before it was abolished. Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere then went to Kisubi Boys, where he completed his primary leaving certificate in 1946.
In 1947, Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere joined St. Mary’s College, Kisubi Junior Secondary One. He obtained the secondary leaving certificate in 1949 and was admitted to senior secondary school in 1950. He obtained the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate in 1952.
After St. Mary’s College Kisubi, Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere enrolled at Makerere University, then the University College of East Africa, when it was still an affiliate of the University of London. He underwent an Intermediate Course (the equivalent of a Higher School Certificate) and, thereafter, joined the Faculty of Education for a Diploma in Education (Dip. Ed. EA; 1959). Ssemogerere continued to pursue academics even as he practised politics, and by 1979, he had obtained a PhD in public administration from a New York University.
He took over leadership of the DP in 1972, while parties were under proscription by the military government, and officially became its president general after the fall of Idi Amin in 1979. Ssemogerere contested for president in December 1980, in the disputed election that led to the Luwero bush war, as many believed he had been robbed of his victory. But he did not join the armed rebellion and instead went into Parliament to lead the opposition.
After the fall of the Obote II government, Ssemogerere served as minister in the subsequent governments until 1995, when he resigned in readiness to contest for the presidency in the 1996 polls that were won by H.E. Yoweri Museveni.
