NATIONAL: Senior Presidential Advisor on Media and Public Relations, John Nagenda is dead.
Neganda, a veteran journalist died on Saturday afternoon at Medipal International Hospital in Kampala where he had been admitted for weeks, according to the presidency.

He was 84.
“He had been admitted to hospital for three months,” President Museveni’s deputy Press Secretary, Faruk Kirunda told this publication on phone.

Nagenda who lived in England for over 10 years before returning to Uganda has been a writer and newspaper columnist since the 1960s.

Minister in Charge of the Presidency, Milly Babalanda said Nagenda was unique, principled and knowledgeable.
“I regret to announce the passing on of Senior Presidential Advisor on Media Matters, Mzee John Nagenda, who has passed on at Medipal in Kampala. He was unique, principled and knowledgeable. His services will be dearly missed,” she tweeted.

He attended Namutamba Primary School, King’s college Budo and Kigezi High School before joining Makerere University for an Honours degree in English.

Although he loved academics, he was also a good sportsman.
“I played football, cricket, tennis and athletics. To this day, I have a house in Mengo where I had a tennis court,” he said in an interview with this publication’s sister station, NTV-Uganda in 2020.

Born John Mwesigwa Robin Nagenda on April 25, 1938 in Rwanda, the former cricketer played one One Day International (ODI) in the 1975 World Cup for East Africa. He appeared in one first-class cricket match in England in 1975, and played cricket for Uganda.
As a writer of fiction and poetry in the 1960s, he is regarded as having been one of the pioneers of writing in East Africa.