Business unusual as ‘rebel’ Ssemakadde storms Law Society presidential race

Years back, Namilyango College boys always made a point to turn up for inter-school seminars dressed smartly like diplomats, lest they be mistaken for the “weevils” of St Mary’s College Kisubi (SMACK)...the one school we couldn’t bear or afford to lose to. 

The Weevils, exceptions-a-few, were typically rough and rowdy; didn’t particularly like to comb their hair or tuck in their shirts...and couldn’t recognise a pair of socks if they met it on the street. But the sibling rivalry aside, we also acknowledged that they were extremely brilliant...and very smooth operators too, especially when it came to matters that I don’t feel able to disclose here: wink, wink! 

After reading that, I hope people will begin to understand and explain the phenomenon that is named Isaac Kimaze Ssemakadde - who did all his six years of secondary education at SMACK, making him a weevil through and through. Ssemakadde is a study in the unique; in the unusual. He was a straight “A” student who, curiously I must add, was enrolled for A-Level to study Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (PCM), plus Economics and French. In the final term though, he dropped chemistry and for the final examinations, this weevil registered for Physics, Economics, Mathematics and French – and still managed to top the country in performance.

At Makerere University, instead of turning up at engineering school, the weevil made a beeline for law school...and still topped his class all the way to the Bar. Ssemakadde speaks and writes some of the best English you will find in town. And he has a mastery of History and Literature at a level far higher than most of the top lawyers who read those subjects at A-Level can even dream of. 

Case planning sessions with Ssemakadde are very interesting. He will allow everyone to propose strategy, and then at the end, he will mesmerise you with three more options you had never even known existed. So, while on average, most lawyers will approach a case with three or four options, Ssemakadde will have six or seven.

 The legal profession, for long stereotyped as black suits, fine shirts, shining shoes and flashy cars, was jerked quite a bit when Ssemakadde made a dramatic entrance onto the scene in 2011. With dreadlocks, jackets on the rare side, cowboy-style boots and a confident take-it-or-leave-it cockiness and movie star confidence about him, Ssemakadde is the lawyer that defies known tradition. What nobody will dispute is that there are very few lawyers in town with a better legal brain and even fewer with better force of argument.

 It is safe to bet Ssemakadde will never be a judge; this boy was born for the Bar – a German Shepherd that spots a lion and, instead of taking to his heels, goes for its neck. After years of doing just that, suing the mafia in the deep state to great acclaim, Ssemakadde, spotting a black-American style afro hairdo these days, now wants the Uganda Law Society (ULS) presidency. Government functionaries are up in arms. After failing to block him using the law, they have gone into high gear, spreading falsehoods about him. They’re scared of what will happen when a man who has been dragging corrupt agents of the State to court becomes ULS president. 

And that should be the ultimate endorsement that the world has been waiting for: when a corrupt, bad government spends money to ensure that a certain lawyer should not become ULS president, it means that lawyer is a good man...and you can’t keep a good man down. People should be concerned when lawyers fear to speak up when a country is losing track. Lawyers should guide the country – not join the looters to bleed the economy. 

A country whose lawyers are soft, timid and compliant in the face of a thieving, corrupt and despotic regime, is a country whose future is in jeopardy. Show me weak, meek lawyers and I will show you a country whose future is bleak. The time has come for ULS to go business unusual; serve up to the country something different, something unique, something special. 

Anyone who thinks the Uganda Law Society needs to man-up and lawyer-up will think Ssemakadde...a weevil even the Namilyango boys will admit, is truly special and likeable.

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda