Charles "Mase" Onyango-Obbo, also Charles Onyango Obbo, (born 1958) is a Ugandan author, journalist, and former Editor of '' Mail & Guardian Africa''. He is a former Managing Editor of '' The Monitor'', a daily Ugandan newspaper, former Executive Editor for the Africa and Digital Media Division with

Nation Media Group Nation Media Group (abbreviated as NMG) is a Kenyan media group listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. NMG was founded by Aga Khan IV in 1959 and is the largest private media house in East and Central Africa with offices in Kenya, Uganda, and Ta ...

. Considered one of the finest journalists in Africa, Onyango-Obbo is a political commentator on issues in East Africa and the

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes ( sw, Maziwa Makuu; rw, Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in th ...

region. He writes a column, "Ear to the Ground", in ''The Monitor'', a second column in the regional weekly ''

The EastAfrican ''The EastAfrican'' is a weekly newspaper published in Kenya by the Nation Media Group, which also publishes Kenya's national '' Daily Nation''. The ''EastAfrican'' is circulated in Kenya and the other countries of the African Great Lakes ...

'', and a third in the '' Daily Nation''.

Early life

Born in the town of

Mbale Mbale is a city in the Eastern Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Mbale District and the surrounding sub-region. Location Mbale is approximately , by road, northeast of Kampala, Uganda's capita ...

Eastern Uganda The Eastern region is one of four regions in the country of Uganda. As of Uganda's 2014 census, the region's population was . Districts , the Eastern Region contained 32 districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in s ...

. Onyango-Obbo studied at St. Leo’s College, Kyegobe in

Fort Portal Fort Portal or Kabarole is a city located in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the seat of both Kabarole District and historically of the Toro Kingdom. Location Fort Portal in Kabarole District is located approximately by road, west of Kampa ...

and later

Makerere University Makerere University, Kampala (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of n ...

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

, the largest and oldest

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

in Uganda, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. He later attended the American University in Cairo, where he obtained the degree of

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...

in journalism. In 1991, he was a

Nieman Fellow The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awards multiple types of fellowships. Nieman Fellowships for journalists A Nieman Fellowship is an award given to journalists by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Career

In late 1997, he and Andrew Mwenda, now managing director and

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of The Ugandan Independent news magazine, then a reporter with the Daily Monitor, were arrested and charged "publication of false news". Their arrest followed a story in which the paper quoted reports in ''The Indian Ocean'' newsletter, that Uganda had become compensated with gold by the Kinshasa government of

Laurent Kabila Laurent may refer to: *Laurent (name), a French masculine given name and a surname **Saint Laurence (aka: Saint ''Laurent''), the martyr Laurent **Pierre Alphonse Laurent, mathematician **Joseph Jean Pierre Laurent, amateur astronomer, discoverer ...

, for its support in, along with Rwanda, in helping to oust the regime of long-term Zaire (now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. They fought the case through the High Court, where their appeal was rejected; went to the Constitutional Court, where again their appeal was rejected; and eventually in 2003 won the most significant court victory for Uganda when the Uganda Supreme Court, against the state, ruled the offense of "publication of false news" to be unconstitutional. In May 1999, during the Second Congo War, Onyango-Obbo and other editors of ''The Monitor'' – Wafula Ogutu and David Ouma Balikowa – were arrested and charged with " sedition" and "publication of false news", following the publication of a photograph of a

naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

woman being

sexually abused Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...

by men in

military uniform A military uniform is a standardised dress worn by members of the armed forces and paramilitaries of various nations. Military dress and styles have gone through significant changes over the centuries, from colourful and elaborate, ornamented ...

. Ugandan officials insisted that the assailants might be soldiers from Congo or

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

(who were also involved in the Congo war), and could not possibly be Ugandan soldiers as the photo caption claimed. Onyango-Obbo and the other editors were acquitted on 6 March 2001. In October 2002, again Onyango-Obbo and three other colleagues were arrested and charged with publication of a story that "aided the enemies of Uganda", after a report that alleged that a military helicopter might have been shot down in northern Uganda by the obnoxious rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army. The government also closed down ''The Monitor'' for 10 days. They were acquitted of the charges a year later. In all, Onyango-Obbo appeared in court over 120 times between 1997 and mid-2003; more than the combined number of times Ugandan journalists had been in court since the country's independence in October 1962.

Leaving Uganda

With that, Onyango-Obbo took up an offer from Nation Media Group, which had taken a majority stake in The Monitor in March 2000, to move to

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

, and initiate the group's media convergence operations. In his view, his continued presence had become counter-productive, because of the hostility of the government towards him and the extent to which he had become a controversial figure, and was overshadowing the newspaper's long-term prospects and undermining the ability of other journalists at the paper to emerge. In 2014, Onyango-Obbo left Nation Media Group to run Mail and Guardian Africa, a digital news platform owned by South Africa's Mail & Guardian, as its Africa Editor. He left the Nairobi-based unit two years later, launching his own digital media unit which currently runs Africa Explainer, AfricaPedia, and Rogue Chiefs.

Publications

*''Ear to the Ground'' (1996): *''Uganda's Poorly Kept Secrets'': (1998) – A Collection of short stories *''Mixed and Brewed in Uganda'': (2008) – A Short tour of the soul of a nation and its people *''It Never Happened'': (2009) – A story on the day before Uganda military dictator Idi Amin was ousted in 1979, the day he fell, and the day after.

References

External links

Onyango-Obbo article archiveMwenda, Obbo: Losing Their Edge?The Late Bernard Mary Ayepa Onyango (1930–2013) Was Charles Onyango-Obbo's Father-in-Law
{{DEFAULTSORT:Onyango-Obbo, Charles 1958 births Living people Ugandan journalists Ugandan columnists Luo people Makerere University alumni Nieman Fellows The American University in Cairo alumni Nation Media Group Ugandan expatriates in Kenya People educated at St. Leo's College, Kyegobe