Mzee Jemba
Mr Godfrey Jjemba, the Kayunga burial conductor, who two years ago enjoyed celebrity status because of his unique style of reading burial announcements, is now cursing his short-lived celebrity life.
The 70-year-old Jjemba, a resident of Mbulakati Village in Kitimbwa Sub-county in Kayunga District, who had early this year opted to keep a low profile and resorted to subsistence farming and collecting market dues from Kitimbwa weekly market, opened up on his misery during an interview with this publication at the weekend.
“If President Museveni has been at the helm of this country for almost 40 years, why is it that my celebrity life lasted for a short period? My fellow celebrities used [me] and after getting what they wanted, they dumped me,’’ a tough-talking Jjemba said.
During the interview held at his home, Jjemba complained that unlike in 2022 and early 2023 when journalists, social media managers, residents and politicians used to frequent his home, today none of them goes to visit him.
“Even though I am still a prominent person in the country, it pains me when I no longer receive the big number of visitors and fellow celebrities I used to get. But on many occasions, I come across some strangers, even when I am in Kampala, who still recognise me and call me a celeb,” Jjemba noted with a smile.
Recounting his lost celebrity life, Mr Jjemba said that then people from Kampala and other areas who wanted to use him used to go to his home every morning and drove him to expensive hotels and entertainments places where he used to dine and wine like “a rich man”.
“Some people who were using me included those who sell suits, own gyms and even musicians. Unfortunately they paid me peanuts for my name,” he said while throwing his hands in the air.
Mr Jjemba in 2022 found himself trending on internet, making him a subject of discussion on most used social media platforms, with memes and cartoons caricatured out of him due to his unique style of reading burial announcements.
As Jjemba’s unique style of reading burial announcements went viral, many celebrities, especially local musicians and politicians frequented his home and offered him foodstuffs, financial support, building materials, household items that included a brand new television, mobile phone, and clothes for his family.
The donations helped him to improve his standard of living because they enabled him to work on his semi-permanent house and he shifted from a mud and wattle house, which he had stayed in for four decades.
But the donations, Mr Jjemba said, did not help him to get a reasonable mode of transport like a motorcycle, although he asserted that some Good Samaritan had promised to send him a brand-new Bajaj motorcycle, but somehow it did not reach him.
“Someone I cannot remember very well promised to send me a motorcycle and I even received information that it had been bought but it seems unscrupulous people stole,” Mr Jjemba said with frustration on his face.
He added: “You can imagine a person they call a celebrity riding an old bicycle. My energy is waning and riding a bicycle is now a big challenge. Someone should come to my rescue.”
