Veteran Politician and former Buganda Kingdom Katikkiro Joash Sibakyalwayo Mayanja Nkangi has passed on.
According to reports, the former finance minister breathed his last around 8:00 am this morning at Nakasero Hospital where he had been admitted since mid-last month for suspected pneumonia.
The development was confirmed by his daughter, also family spokesperson Josephine Nkangi who said an Oncologist had examined and tested him for possible cancer.
Nkangi passed on at the age of 85.
About Joash Mayanja-Nkangi;
Joash Mayanja-Nkangi is a soft-spoken lawyer who served as a Member of Parliament, Minister in several regimes and former Chairperson of the Uganda Land Commission. He was the Katikkiro of Buganda when the Obote I government attacked Mengo palace and exiled Kabaka Edward Mutesa in May 1966.
Nkangi atteded Kabungo Primary School in Buddu Masaka, Kings College Buddo and finished Makerere University College from where he graduated in 1953. He would later join Kebel College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.
He was one of the few certified barristers in Uganda after the Oxford training. On returning to Uganda, Mayanja Nkangi went into private legal practice and immersed himself in the fight against colonialism.
He said his fight against colonialism began in 1952 while still at Makerere. That agitation would move to a higher level when the Governor at the time, Sir Andrew Cohen exiled Kabaka Edward Mutesa II on November 30, 1953, to England.
In 1962, Nkangi witnessed the lowering of the British Flag and hoisting of the Uganda Flag on Independence Day in 1962.
He served as Member of Parliament for Masaka East, and later Minister without Portfolio in 1962. He was also Minister of Commerce and Industry.
In 1964, at the age of 33, Mayanja Nkangi was appointed Katikkiro of Buganda, a position he held through the tumultuous years of Uganda-Buganda bickering until 1966 when the Kabaka was exiled. The following year, kingdoms were abolished and a new constitution put in place.
Just like the Kabaka, Nkangi also went into exile in London following where he secured a job as a research fellow at Lancaster University.
Nkangi was Minister in the Museveni government from 1986 until his retirement in 2001, holding such sensitive portfolios Education, Finance, and Justice. On retiring, he was appointed Chairman Uganda Land Commission.
While now on retirement, his desire is to see a peaceful Uganda but unfortunately he thinks peace has eluded the country.
Nkangi says he is a born again Christian but he insists not under church but under God.
He is writing a book titled "Out of empire into a servitude" detailing some of the turbulent history that the country has gone through right after independence to-date.
