President Museveni Pays Tribute to Omugurusi Festo Karwemera (Kigezi Cultural Scholar)

Omugurusi Festo Karwemera ,95 was an author of Runyakole- Rukiga language who passed on Sunday morning from Rugarama Hospital.

Through social media Museveni wrote”I learnt of the passing of Omugurusi Festo Karwemera, a gallant son of Uganda who promoted the language and culture of the Bakiga by writing many books; a gesture of preservation of the heritage of the African people.”

“Our Bantu dialects and other African languages are much richer than the European languages, unfortunately, most of these dialects were not written down.”

“With limited writing and elders dying, I joined some linguists from Makerere University to write a thesaurus of Ruyankole-Rukiga (Katondozi). Omugurusi Karwemera was a great source of information in writing this book. We shall forever be grateful.”

“Our mother tongues have a potentially great future if we could get more linguistic patriots to sensitise the population about the importance of our rich culture.”

“We salute Omugurusi Karwemera for the crucial role he played and we pray that his outstanding service will be a source of inspiration and motivation to most Ugandans. May his soul Rest in Eternal Peace.”