Hosted by the esteemed CEO of CivSource Africa, Jacqueline Asiimwe, this platform brings to life the diverse stories of revered personalities like Mama Rhoda Kalema, Dr. Miria Matembe, James Tumusiime, Alex Mukulu, and more. With meticulous attention to storytelling and inspiration, each episode intricately weaves interviews, recollections, and expert commentary, delving deep into the essence of these unique lives. Beyond recounting histories, the podcast illuminates the challenges, triumphs, and wisdom of its subjects. Complementing the auditory journey, an E-book will immortalize these stories in written form. Distributed across major platforms like Spotify, Bullhorn, Anchor, and CivSource Africa’s YouTube channel, the series aims to inspire, educate, and connect audiences worldwide.
Starting this April, the CivLegacy Foundation presents its #FootprintsPodcast series, an initiative focused on sharing experiences to glean wisdom from leaders and elders who have paved the way for us. These individuals have navigated the journey of succession and transition, entering a new phase of their lives. Through the #FootprintsPodcast, CivLegacy hopes to extract insights, best practices, and lessons from their experiences, including their fears, hopes, triumphs, and preparations. Partnering with CEO East Africa Magazine, CivLegacy Foundation brings you these leadership experiences and the lessons therefrom.
In the inaugural episode, Jacqueline Asiimwe, CEO of CivSource Africa and podcast host, engaged in a conversation with Reverend Canon Benoni Mugarura Mutana, affectionately known as Uncle Ben, the esteemed former Chaplain of the Anglican St. Francis Chapel at Makerere University, Uganda’s oldest and largest educational institution. Uncle Ben fondly reflects on his fifty-year ministry journey, with twenty years dedicated to service at Makerere. His is a story of riding on faith and music in nurturing one of the nation’s largest youth ministries, a legacy that endures even after his retirement in 2008. Reverand Benoni candidly speaks about navigating change and preparing his church for transitions as retirement loomed, facing unforeseen challenges with resilience and foresight.
PRESS PLAY LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRD3sUaIjfs
Jacqueline Asiimwe (J.A): Uncle Ben, you are very welcome to the Footprints Podcast. Can you tell our audience who may not know who you are, a bit about yourself⏤ who is Benon Jack Mugarura Mutana?
Benoni Jack Mugarura Mutana (Uncle Ben): I am, as you have said, Reverend Canon Benoni Mugarura Mutana. I am a retired Anglican priest, having served in different positions along the way until I retired in 2008. I had served both in the Church of Uganda in the Province, that is serving under the Archbishop and I was serving in the Youth Department for quite some time. Then I was invited to serve in the chapel of St. Francis at Makerere University from where I/we retired.
I’m from Kigezi which has since been split into many districts- Kabale, Rukungiri and eventually Rukiga and Rubanda districts- but I come from Kabale District, in a village called Bukora, Rwakaraba among the people called the Abaheesi.
I’m married to Joy, my dear wife, and God blessed us with five children- three girls and two boys. God gave us women first; three girls, and then two boys. And we have from them, five grandchildren. That is who I am.
J.A: Uncle Ben- if I can call you that, talking about leadership and transition. When did you first become a leader? When did you first consciously call yourself a leader?
Uncle Ben: Consciously calling myself a leader was a long time before my calling. In my youth, we formed a church youth group- that’s where I remember first calling myself a leader first because there were no youth groups in our churches before then. This was in the 1950s, but I cannot remember the exact date. That is when I, discovered some degree of leadership potential in me- leading young people, well, we led one another, in particular, performances towards the Christmas programme (of the Church). We would sing songs, and we would have drama. Parents would come and see us. That was part of the Christmas festivities that we had at the time. That is when I first discovered my leadership potential.
Later on, in the 1960s, I started training at Bishop Tucker College, as a priest of the Anglican Church, as an ordained person. At that time, leadership had been developed in me, but I didn’t know how to channel it. So, I was always thought of as a rebel, as kind of a non-conformist. The lecturers we had at the time, couldn’t understand me very well.
But I was most of the time interested in the culture of our people. We the Bakiga, never had a drum, in our culture. The word ‘Engoma’ (Rukiga for drum), meant the rulership of somebody in a leadership position at the time. Unlike the central Uganda people who used drums to play music and dance- we didn’t have any drums in our music. We danced to the clapping of hands and singing. When I went to Mukono (Bishop Tusker College), there was a drum and I liked to play the drum or to accompany the singing. But that was out of the normal. And then I was kind of disciplined for that. But that was planted in me to be developed later on in the years.
J.A: Interestingly, you say that you were very interested in culture⏤ and for those who don’t know, Uncle Ben has written a book about his life called “Unlikely” where he describes some of this journey about being so in love with, especially the Bakiga musical expression, through culture and wanting to borrow from that richness and bring it into worship. It’s also interesting that you said you were considered a rebel and now I start to think about your five children and now I can understand why we are the way we are. But you a rebel in a good sense because that meant, you asked questions and I think in the space of being a rebel comes innovation, creating and trying out new things; mixing the old and the new and throwing out what isn’t working. That is all part of being a leader, right? That’s part of what leaders do; you sometimes go counterculture or push. When you look back, again, we’re talking about a long arc of leadership, what stands out most in terms of a leadership moment that tested your leadership?
Uncle Ben: Sometimes you have to push, especially when the organisation or the setting in which you find yourself is not moving. You have to push so that you can move something forward.
The moment that tested my leadership, was when I was working as the National Youth Leader and I was supposed to bring up youth leaders, in the whole of Uganda, in the Church of Uganda particularly, I found resistance. People were not willing to change because the church, I was working in, at that time, was the church which emphasised the need to behave in the church, as old people. So here I was, facing young people that I am supposed to make behave like old people.
It was very difficult to convince anyone that young people are young people, and we have to take them as young people because if we don’t take them as young people, they will run away from the church. That wasn’t easy. That didn’t augur well, with the older church leaders.
That was the first (time he faced resistance), and the second was when we started the introduction of music in the church that was different. Let me explain. For those who may not know, the Church of Uganda is traditional. As traditional as the Church of Uganda is, we basically use hymns in worship. That was the kind of music that you would practice a lot of the time and try to sing in harmony. That was supposed to be beautiful- singing in worship, but here you are, I have been working with young people. I knew that young people could sing in African style and with African music, and they enjoyed worshipping God this way. How do you bring the two together in the worship, especially when I came to St. Francis to be the chaplain of Makerere University, to be the chaplain of young people? How do you use the guitar in worship amongst people who were used to standing straight and clapping and singing hymns? I was introducing something very different from what everybody was used to and that was hard. That was hard, but eventually, we got through. Yeah, once you know, you are working for God- you are on God’s side, you will get through.
J.A: As I was preparing for the interview, I was listening to an interview you gave about St. Francis Chapel. I remember part of the clip, you explained how, at some point, there were 30-50 people in the church, and how you grew it from what it was to three services and over 2000 people and how infusing life in the church through music in worship partly contributed to this. This takes a certain kind of leadership that presses through, like you said, a leadership that knows the goal, the vision, the call, and says, “We will do it”. Yes, there will be resistance, but we will still do it.
Uncle Ben: Exactly. But it is important to understand that this resistance is not from people who do not mean well; they mean well, but they are in their understanding. So, in their understanding, they, thought that at the time, we could conform to what was happening, and we would maintain, what was happening. There I was introducing something new. By the way, the musicians in that church, all the musicians resigned, and I remained with non-musical people. I remember the person when we would start singing new songs, who would play the guitar for he knew only the chords. The organist had stepped down because he said this wasn’t music. But we brought it up slowly by slowly. Some young people came in from Kings College Buddo and Gayaza High School who had more music background and we improved and from there, there was no looking back. No return.
J.A: Now, let’s start thinking about and walking towards your transition; your retirement. When did that journey start? Yes, you said you retired in 2008, but when did you start to walk towards that gate, towards that date, as a person, as a family and as a church? What was that journey like?
Uncle Ben: It was a challenging journey. I remembered my father retiring, but I didn’t understand what that meant. I was still young, and he didn’t stay long after his retirement. He died soon after.
But my journey of retirement started when I knew that I would reach the age of 65 and I wouldn’t pass that. At the University, the retirement age was 60 years, but the church retirement was at 65. So, there was a compromise between the university and the church.
About 10 years prior to my retirement, I started thinking of retirement, particularly in the area of the home after I retired. We had lived in houses owned by either the university or the church all this time, and therefore I didn’t have a house to my name. So, because I was very busy, I sent my wife to go to Kabale, our hometown to find land and whether we would buy some land where to start building a retirement house. She went and spent almost a week and couldn’t find any place that we could buy to build a home for ourselves. So, our idea of going to Kabale, our hometown when we retire went that way- out in the air.
We started thinking about here in Kampala, where we could build a home. Then, we acquired a quarter of an acre of land in Lweza. We had also saved some money, when we lived out of the country, and had bought land in Wakiso. Presently it is in Wakiso town, but at that time it wasn’t a town. Then we started thinking about building. But we didn’t even have enough money for the education of the children and then we were thinking about building. It was a difficult time.
For me, it was even more challenging. I remember that when I got married, my father-in-law stood among the relatives, on what we call the okuhingira ceremony (the giveaway of their daughter to get married to me). He said that he was giving me his daughter and that I should look after her. Here I was, I had promised the old man, that I was going to look after his daughter and I was retiring but had no home.
I mentioned I had worked in the Church of Uganda for almost fifty years, and I had worked in Makerere University for almost 20 years. In anticipation of retirement, I had gone to the Church of Uganda, to find out how much I would be getting as retirement benefits. I was assured by the Archbishop that nothing. Nothing was reserved. Zero. He told me that there was nothing for me in the Church of Uganda.
I thought that the university that I was working with would think about me, now that I was going to retire. I went to the University Secretary, who is the Chief Administrator of the University and presented my case. I wanted to know what I was worth in the University as far as my retirement benefits were concerned. He was a very kind man. He asked me to bring my contract which I had signed 19 years before and they brought the file to his office and he opened the pages and looked and looked and said, “Ah you didn’t sign anything about retirement. So, the university doesn’t owe you anything”.
DTB Uganda rides on strong growth in lending to post UGX41 bn in net profitHere I was, I had been a faithful minister in the Anglican Church, and the faithful minister in the university, and neither the Anglican Church nor the university had considered my retirement. Yet I had to retire when I clocked 65 years. I walked out of his office and down the steps, back towards the church. I was lost in many thoughts. For quite some time, I was thinking, what I was going to do?
We had a piece of land in Wakiso, but what are we going to do? We needed money to develop it. We had a shell house- it was a house built but with no windows, in Lweza. What would happen? To tell you the truth, for a few months that went by and felt my heart wasn’t beating normally anymore. I went to the Heart Institute in Mulago Hospital, and I was advised that unless I changed the way I was living, I would have heart problems. Then I was under treatment and all these kinds of things. I tried to reason with myself about what would happen.
But when the day to retire eventually came, I was ready. Why, how was I ready? God had helped us. This is how faithful God is. God had helped us complete our house in Lweza. We had hoped we would retire in Lweza at least, then a surprise of surprises happened, we had built and completed our home in Wakiso as well.
J.A: But Uncle Ben, when you say surprised, what do you mean?
Uncle Ben: I mean, surprised, because we had no money. But we begin building and believing. Faith is very, very important. Believing in God, that He is going to see us through.
But let me go back a little back- as I was struggling with the thoughts of my father-in-law and his daughter and what shall we do in all this? Where shall we go away from here? It was my wife, Joy, who gave me counsel.
She told me: “Do you think somebody who picked you from the village- the village is called Rwakaraba, up to today, is going to fail to look after us?”
Anyone who wants to know my story, it is in my book. When I was drunk, had nowhere to be and didn’t know where I was going and where I was coming from, God picked me from the street; on the road coming from Kisoro to Kabale and saved me.
That was very good counsel from my wife. I started trusting more in this God. That is why I say it was a surprise because, whereas a few years, before, we didn’t have a home, at the time of retirement, the university gave us the truck and accepted the truck to drive us to Bukola village, in Kabalae, but we were not going to go there because we had a home in Wakiso, so the truck brought us to our home. Although it was muddy outside, but it was a home. It brought us home. And there we offloaded things into our house. What a joy it was. What a joy! But to come to that stage, required faith in God and trusting Him in every detail.
We called that home, The Joy Centre, after my wife.
J.A: So other than dealing with the home as part of your retirement, how did you prepare the church for your living or they knew anyway, that chaplains come and go?
Uncle Ben: Yes, they knew that chaplains come and go, but my time was rather different. I had found a church, which wasn’t of any significance. Although it was a university church, it wasn’t significant at the time. But I felt very, very strongly that this church was special. God had established this church at the centre of the University for a reason and the reason was that, as the students trained at the University to be leaders in the country and the world, they were supposed to be prepared to be leaders in the church as well. I put my effort into raising these leaders. So, when I was living, I had many leaders. Some had already started leadership roles in different places, and others were coming in. So I was leaving a big, big congregation with respect.
So realizing that I was going towards retirement, I started preparing the congregation to accept the new person who would come after me. I didn’t know who it was because it was not in my control; it was in the control of the university and the Archbishop of Uganda to work together and see who would replace me. But my role was to start preparing the community for the next leader.
J.A: And what did that involve?
Uncle Ben: I took the image from Moses and Joshua in the bible and their leadership of the children of Israel. I started looking at what did Moses do? He went to do other things, while Joshua, remained in the tent of the meeting. Yet, I didn’t have anybody who would be remaining in the tent of the meeting, I was alone, a single leader. So, I started telling the church, the congregation that after Moses, there came Joshua. I started leading the congregation to think in terms of a Joshua who was going to come after me. I prepared the leadership of the church, the Church Council, as then they were called in that regard. I prepared everybody, most especially, when I started leading the people to know that it was their church.
When I joined the church, most of the students who graduated would go away, but now people who graduated stayed as members of the church and therefore, I had ‘stayees’, as I would call them, and St. Francis was their church. I started showing them, how it is their church, and what it means to be in their church. Even when we were building the St. Francis Community Centre, it was being built as their church property. So I built a sense of ownership, in everybody who was going to St. Francis. We also talked about the fact that the person who comes next, will need their support and he would become their shepherd in their work, in their discipleship and leadership.
J.A: How did you prepare the family?
Uncle Ben: My family, by this time was scattered. I kind of prepared my family when we were coming to Makerere University and leaving Namirembe. It was abrupt. When you work with other people leading you, you have to accept their decisions. During this time, the Archbishop of Uganda whom I was working under, called me into his office on a Friday and said that he was going to take me to St. Francis, Makerere and that I should go and talk to my wife and give them the answer between Friday and Monday. I thought that was ridiculous, but I went and talked to my wife. We were eventually advised that this Archbishop, you never say no to him. So we had no way except to come and introduce it to our children that we were going to Makerere. Although some of them had already started going to Makerere University for Sunday School because of the love of the person who was leading the Sunday School there, the thought go leaving their friends behind didn’t go down well with them. They ran around and made noise. It was difficult. But we had to agree to bundle them and take them with us.
But by the time we left Makerere, they were grown. The last child got married just before we left, as part of our concluding business at St. Francis. They went their way, and we went our way.
J.A: As we wind down Uncle Ben, I think there are beautiful lessons that you’ve pointed out to us. One, is complete faith in God because He determines our path, but also that leaders raise leaders because you cannot leave the space empty. You cannot leave a vacuum where you’re leading; so, leaders raise leaders. But you also deliberately prepared your congregation for the next leader. Then finally, creating that sense of ownership in the church, that this was their thing, because often when a leader leaves, people flee with the leader, right? But if you’ve built that sense of, “No, this is yours; you can’t leave anything that is yours; so, own it, accept it, and then act as the leaders that you are and support the next person that is coming”.
Uncle Ben: Yeah, that’s what was very important for me. And I want to say, that by studying the Bible, you will find out very many models of people who worked with God, and how they handled leadership, especially in their final times. There were leaders like Prophet Elijah, for example, who prepared his disciple, Elisha. Because Elisha knew that Elijah was going to be taken, he glued himself on him. But Elijah insisted that Elisha stays. But until the separation happened, miraculously⏤ the chariots of fire separated them, it was difficult. What he (Elisha) remained with was Elijah’s cloak, which he took, and that helped him at the beginning of his ministry. For example, he split the river with it. It is then that he (Elisha) knew that the God who was with Elijah was with him.
J.A: Finally, if you’re talking to a leader that is facing either retirement or an imminent change⏤ maybe they have come to an end of their leadership Journey, what’s the one piece of advice you would give them from your own journey of transition?
Uncle Ben: I would say to them, that the world continues without you. So you better, do your part and do it very well knowing that you are going. I would say to the leaders, especially those who have a responsibility, and they have the power to control the responsibility, that, know that transition happens. The transition may not be guided by you, but the transition will happen. So, you better guide your transition; you better guide your outing and find out the people who are going to come after you- some Joshuas who are going to take on the leadership once you have stepped aside and then you will, you will be comfortable. You will end your time in comfort, knowing that what I did, I did and I handed over to the people who are coming after me.
But don’t stay as if you are the only leader available, who God has chosen to lead those people or the organisation you are leading or whatever you’re leading. No. God has many, many people. You may be sitting next to the leaders who are coming after you. They will eventually move you over and let you fall.
J.A: As the Bible says- Stop and think about these things! Uncle Ben, thank you so much for being our first guest. Thank you for the well of wisdom. Thank you for enabling us to walk in your footprints as you shared your journey. And thank you for the nuggets that you have left along the way for us.