(Sir) Samuel Apedel

Hey Sunday Vision readers, do you know who used to be the co-editor of this fantastic weekend magazine from Uganda's leading daily? Well, now he moved to the internet department. I do not care if Queen Elizabeth knighted him or not while he was in Scotland but I still call him Sir because he paved one-way for me by leading through example besides being my lecturer at UCU. His name is Sir Samuel Baker, ahem excuse me, did I just mention the ancient explorer from Britain? I'm sorry I meant Sir Samuel Apedel, now you know.

Every one has a hero, no wonder some friend in Zambia phoned and told Apedel that he had named his son after him. By 2005, Samuel had a BA (Lit, ESL) MUK; Dip (BMA) Cambridge and M.A (C.S) Leeds. If there is one person I need to thank for giving me the grind to publish my ideas for widespread public consumption, it has to be ‘Uncle Sam’. What’s up with me and Itesots; why do my best associates mainly come from Teso Kere? Anyway, every time I publish an article in the newspapers or magazines, people call or beep me to acknowledge my modest wit. I’m an ordinary Ugandan who did not know which way to go until Apedel showed me one-way.
My Campus faculty dean - Ben Bella Illakut -thankfully addressed my 2005 internship Application Letter to the New Vision (one among the lucky few Mass Commers; the rest had ‘To whom it may concern’) but the Editor in Charge I was sent to for an interview said there was not enough money to hire many from UCU (though Mwiza, ‘Doryn’, Esther and Brens had practice there). Most interns were MUK students. I did not weep about the failed attempt but met Mr. Apedel and told him about my situation. What he advised me at the entrance of the NV block in April 2005 will always remain a landmark in my writing career. Personally, I did not fancy reporting breaking or daily news in newspapers and TV. My heart went out to cartooning or writing features, like the investigative infotainment style you read in Encyclopedias or watch on ‘CNN Presents’. Features do not call for tight deadlines like current news; so when Mr. Apedel told me to just ‘write letters or 600 word columns on any topical issues’, I knew I would gain my space.
I got down in an unused store (Formerly a retail shop for my parents) and brainstormed ideas from 7am to 4pm on certain days. For one month, I had no breakthrough until one Sunday when I called ‘the Man’ to ask if I should send my letters to the weekday editors too, instead of addressing them to only Sunday Vision which had limited letter space. Coincidentally, that was the day (Sunday 19 June 2005) probably my first letter was published. When he informed me that he had put one of my letters “Kudos to Saggy and Bad Idea”, I was overjoyed and gleefully went to purchase my Sunday Vision. That was the start of many letters including “Give Aid to the Hungry”; “Build Giant Solar Stations” [There’s a lot of barren land in game parks upcountry that can be used for development]; “I Simply Love my Sunday Paper”; “The West Owes Us”; “Mwenda Should Emulate VOA’s Ssali”; “Kudos to Gaagaa Coach”; “Congratulations SMACK OBs”; “Pray for Somalia”; “Leave Inzikuru Alone” [One Kenyan classmate called her my Girlfriend because I knew an intimate secret Dorcas had told someone else who also told me] and one whose title ‘Respect Mothers’ I dreamt was published before even writing the content matter. I also published in Daily Monitor (Wenger - the Miracle Economist; Survival Football), African Woman plus Premiership Magazine besides actually receiving a 2008 World Bank Certificate for yapping too much. To-date though, I have reduced on the yapping in newspapers. But thanks to New Vision’s impeccable editing, I managed to see that people should be able to grasp the gist of your opinions in a few words or else you will fail to communicate ideas professionally. My Wordiness is probably ‘my Weakness’ (A 2002 confession that made my Economics classmates laugh hard) but thanks to GOD and the Google geeks, Blogger.com has no Word Limits for my weakness, Hee hee!
Apedel’s compellingly relevant course (Media Issues and Society) at UCU 2005 included Freedom of speech and Censorship/ The Media and the Individual vs. Public/ Media and Culture (What is popular culture?)/ Media Effects (Audience Study & Analysis): What actually happens when somebody reads a newspaper? / Advertising/ Globalisation and the Media/ Media Ownership and Editorial Independence/ Media and Democracy/ Going Digital/ plus the New vs. Old Media. He taught us that “A blog is short for web log. It liberates ordinary people to become journalists.” I love sharing knowledge because I have seen it set people free and propel them forward. Even if I’m not acclaimed as a successful journalist, I think blogging is the way to go as a knowledge worker though I took 3 years (4 years after Douglas Bowman designed the ‘Rounders 4’ Blogger template style) to get going after a motivational spark from another student of Apedel named Sharpe Cole Nimusiima (His blog is www.sharpeseye.blogspot.com). The reason why I did journalism was NOT because I wanted CNN to vote me the Best “Journalist” in the World but because I admired TV, radio, books, newspapers, etc … The content in the Media industry can lift up your downtrodden spirit plus show you how the world works. What is life without intelligence? Through my Journalism course, I wanted to learn how to make knowledge work for me in order to help others in whichever way I was built to do. Imagine one day, I walk into the Media Centre upstairs and find Mr. Apedel sitted at his desk with a computer, I wouldn’t mind sharing any good ideas if he asks me…
Here is a collection of some of Apedel’s wise quotable quotes while I was his student, though he did not tell us to write these as notes [My comments are in brackets]:
“When your friend dies, you should achieve what he hasn’t achieved…”
“The Most Successful People are not necessarily the cleverest …” [Some of them are very sharp in deed]
“If you give a dog a bad name, it will live up to it.” [The same might apply to sheep plus he-goats like me]
“Northerners are known for dressing in shouting colours like Green Jeans, Yellow Trousers and Orange Shirts. [This was actually very funny to many classmates]
“You blame everybody and at the end of the day, you have no one to blame…but yourself.” [Here he was humorously philosophizing like a well adjusted human being]
“Hidden knowledge is no knowledge; you’ve got to test it…” [The gap between potential and achievement is putting your skills into action and letting the market polish them…]
“Show me someone who doesn’t like sex and I’ll show you a psychological dysfunction…If you are stupid enough to have sex, don’t be foolish not to use a condom.” [Only eunuchs - castrated men and maybe circumcised women can be celibate; the rest of us are just living and dying to ‘get laid’]
“Uganda is a poor country. According to IMF research, even the billionaires we talk about in Uganda aren’t ranked among the Richest. But in the whole of Africa, Uganda has been marked as the Most Resourceful country on the continent – because many people are entrepreneurial and desire to make money.”
“You just have time to go back to your room to sleep and gas only.” [Mr. Apedel was condemning our campus behaviour of wasting time instead of using it for meaningful things. Although shameful, I guess I had a similar lifestyle though mine also included listening to music while sleeping in the afternoon, and watching DStv through the night. A classmate to my sister two years behind who was also my hostel-mate once told me, “If you were reading your books, Uganda would be developed.” Even if he did not target that at me, GOD bless him if he did, there was a grain of salt in what he said. We need to put our brains to maximum use.]
“You should be sharp like (Uganda Cranes midfielder David) Obua, pass the ball (in) to the net.”
“I do not want to see that corridor that leads to the shit house.” [Here, he was expressing his displeasure at females who expose their behind (ass) by wearing G-Strings, a provocative fashion craze around 2005]
“I heard that someone in this class keeps thinking, ‘Emily makes the hair behind my head stand’…” [My first impression of this seemingly sarcastic statement was that he was mocking all of us boys who thought we could marry our classmates who were probably already booked by outside men. We had not yet achieved anything big with our lives and could not even take good care of ourselves yet we were eyeing our female classmates. The second impression, though paranoid, was that it was indirectly meant for me. In November 2003, I fell in love accidentally with some beauty in our class but jumped out around February 2005. To ease my heart in the remaining one year at UCU, I willingly tried to have an affair with another sexy & lovely classmate named Em’ since she boldly called me ‘boyfriend’. The brave get what they want, you know…I might have been naïve in steering relationships with females but one thing was certain: I always stay real. If the girl gets tired of me, my heart is wide open…she can walk away freely. Eve did not conceive only one beautiful daughter. So if Em’ was another pillar for me to lean on, even for just those moments, I did not care what classmates gossiped. I simply breathed on and Emily surely made the hair behind my head stand…]
“Newspapers are the prime movers in setting news agenda … TV is for idiots, radio is for semi-intelligent people while real intellectuals read newspapers. [The Internet somehow brought back the newspaper’s ability to break news. I’m glad to be a part of Google’s Online Newspaper franchise where every writer edits his work and can set the agenda for his readers]
“By living, you are actually dying…” [Another very philosophical idea]