Former Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana has eulogised the Permanent Secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister as a 'fool' who enjoyed good humour but exhibited great wit and distinct intellect.
Rukutana in a long eulogy, said he had lost someone " who is not any other brother or friend to me. He is part of me".
Rukutana says that he and Keith had their own language, and they jocularly referred to each other as 'fool' while they traded in banter and laughed to tears.
"Such were our daily witty and humorous greetings," Rukutana notes.
"As a Minister, I thought I was his boss. I always joked with him that I could dismiss him, to which he always retorted that he will live to see who would leave the Ministry before the other! When, after five years I was transferred to the Ministry of Labor, he was so sad. But the following morning, he called me so early in the morning and, with his characteristic laughter, asked me; "you fool, who of the two of us has left the Ministry of Finance first"? to which I retorted that I had voluntarily left them because I was tired of working with 'stupid' people."
"I will not conclude without narrating our last crude humour with Keith; when he was transferred from the office of PS/ST, to PS, OPM, of course, I was no longer a Minister and he was always reminding me that I lost power. I took my revenge by calling him to tell him that he too had lost power. One time, he wrote a letter rebuking and warning a driver who had knocked a student's case, or something of the sort. With Ben Kavuya, we called him and asked him how, a person who always wrote to the President of the World Bank and IMF, could stoop so low to write a long letter condemning a driver who had spilt mandaazi. We laughed so heartily about it. But his revenge never took long. I had written a letter to the Attorney General over a case I am handling. The AG referred the letter to PS/ OPM for a response. Keith called me the following morning and said; "you fool, you said I had lost power; come and sign the letter yourself"
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Rukutana reveals that he had already booked his travel ticket to Milan in Italy to see Muhakanizi and he was counting on the days to the 17th of April when he would finally travel, but this was not to happen.
"Last evening, I failed to stay for long at Millennium as I always do. I felt uneasy, stressed, and all of a sudden, an urge to go home and sleep. My wife and I watched the 8:00 pm news. She noticed that I was absent-minded and asked me what was going on in my mind. Surprisingly, there was nothing I was thinking about or something I could place a finger on. My mind was just blank. I went to bed and soon caught a lousy, uneasy sleep.
Then an unusual bang on the door; angrily, I asked the house help why she was disturbing our sleep. In a shrill and timid voice, she told me that Rehema had called to ask me to call Ben Kavuya urgently "Someone has died" she ended. I dropped 'dead'. I didn't need any other explanation. It was Keith!!"
