Tuesday, August 28, 2001, shall go down as the most tragic day for the sports media fraternity. That morning saw four top sports journalists perish in a horrific car crash near Lugazi.
It was hard to believe The Monitor's Francis Batte Junior and The New Vision trio of Kenneth Matovu, Leo Kabunga and Simon Peter Ekarot were all dead!
The four young men served on the Uspa executive at the time and could have been in high spirits after meeting Nile Breweries corporate affairs manager Benna Namukwaya for a sponsorship deal for the Uspa gala.
In Kampala, sports scribes eagerly awaited news of the sponsorship package but the quartet never made it. By 1:40 pm they were all dead; they were mangled in Matovu's car. The Monitor and The New Vision newsrooms were paralyzed by this unbearable tragedy.
We were suddenly back to June 8, 1998, the day a similar tragedy claimed two senior Monitor editors Richard Tebere and Rashid Mudin. Then, it took me long to convince myself that RT and Big Rash were really dead. And now came this, again, and so soon!
Tebere and Mudin were both my buddies and mentors. The four young journalists were also close friends and colleagues. I worked in the same newsrooms with Matovu, Ekarot and Batte. I was also regularly on the same events with Kabunga.
It was hard to imagine who could ever fit into Batte and Matovu's shoes in terms of talent and skill. And they were all so young!
Batte was 24 years while Matovu was 25. Ekarot was 29, and Kabunga about 40. When Matovu joined The Monitor in 1993 as a correspondent, I immediately fell in love with his style. Being his senior, I encouraged him to go for it.
Matovu left The Monitor in 1995 to join The Crusader. But we remained friends and routinely exchanged notes. When he moved to The New Vision in 1998, he quickly established himself as a star columnist and commentator.
We worked for two rival media houses, but we also worked together, both professionally and at personal level. When my parents celebrated 47 years in wedlock, it was Matovu who designed the souvenir magazine and helped organise the Njovu clan.
Batte was also so creative with graphics, he brought a new look to The Monitor sports section. He was so very friendly and sociable; everyone loved to tease him around the office. And, all he did was laugh at himself too! He rooted for KCC, yet being "yellow" never clouded his journalism.
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We shall forever miss Batte's From The Touchline and Matovu's Kenneth A. Matovu weekly columns, which were such great reads, individual works with a rare touch of class and authority.
On the other hand, Ekarot was an extremely pleasant fellow. He broke so many sports stories, reducing more experienced journalists to amateurs. Lastly, Kabunga was the elder in the quartet. I first met him in 1990 when he was reporting for The Star.
Together, we specialised in the so-called 'minor' sports such as netball and handball before moving on with the big names. I learnt a lot from Kabunga. Our chats would go on and on, but there is really no fitting tribute that can capture what the country, especially we the sports media fraternity, lost in Matovu, Batte, Ekarot and Kabunga.
May they rest in eternal peace!
bzziwa@observer.ug
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