One Uganda’s veteran journalists, Andrew Patrick Luwandaga died early Saturday.
Relatives and family friends disclosed that Luwandaga, whom many of his juniors in the profession simply referred to as ‘uncle Pat’, died on arrival at city health facility where he had been rushed after complaining of feeling unwell back at his home in Namasuba, a Kampala city suburb.
Luwandaga was the was director of Programmes at the government – owned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Correspondent at the time of his death.
He is one of the best sports journalists Uganda has ever produced in the last four decades. He is credited for having developed a sports desk at the former Uganda Television, created a large viewership at the then only television channel in the country before the liberalization and proliferation of the media industry in the country.
Luwandaga came to the limelight in 1978 when he moderated on UTV; the Fifa World Cup hosted in Mexico. He had since then been on a steady and progressive developmental trend of his 48 – year journalism career.
He trained at the Institute of Public Administration (now Uganda Management Institute), trained in Netherlands under the Radio Netherlands training program and in Germany under an exchange programme between the two governments.
He has been, for a long time, Master of Ceremonies of the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) during The Cranes’ international engagements either at the Mandela National Stadium, Namboole or Nakivubo War Memorial Stadium.
He witnessed as Uganda qualify for the 1978 Nations Cup where the Cranes lost the final 0- 2 to hosts Ghana Black Stars and recently as the Nation qualified for the 2017 Gabon Afcon after 38-year lull.
Close friends say Luwandaga had plans of attending and covering the 2017 Gabon Afcon.
Unfortunately the Almighty summoned him.
He is also remembered as one of the founding members and former President of the Uganda Sports Press Association (USPA), a national body that brings together all journalists in the country with bias on sport
