Former presidential press secretary Joseph Tamale Mirundi is dead. Tamale Mirundi was a fierce critic of a ‘mafia’ group he claimed was within the government of President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni.
Tamale Mirundi, who also served as a presidential advisor on media matters, belonged to President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
On some occasions, he donned yellow clothes. Yellow is the major color of Museveni’s NRM party which morphed from the rebel group, the National Resistance Army (NRA).
He was also associated with the first son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s political movement, the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU).
Afraid of the ‘mafia,’ he sometimes was pictured with a hammer, a weapon he said he carried in case of an attack.
He was once a famous political analyst but his strong language made some stations suspend his media appearances.
His appearance on One on One show on NBS TV, one of Uganda’s biggest television brands, was stopped over his unpleasant allegations against officials he linked to the mafia gang.
Tamale Mirundi would also later appear on STV where his Sharp Talk struggled to garner the ratings he previously had on NBS TV’s One on One show.
Later, Tamale Mirundi shifted to online shows, sometimes being hosted on channels that the mainstream media had no control over.
He also had some appearances at now youth and children affairs minister Balaam Barugahara’s Radio 4.
Born in 1964, Tamale Mirundi was aged 60.
In July 2024, Tamale Mirundi was rushed to Kisubi Hospital in critical condition. He was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
In 2020, Tamale Mirundi was involved in an accident for which he could not rule out the ‘mafia’ as being behind it. Mirundi had also reconciled with Andrew Mwenda, a man he had previously reconciled. He was known to support Gen Muhoozi but criticize Museveni’s son-in-law Odrek Rwabwogo to the extent that his (Rwabwogo’s supporters) threatened to sue him. (See Details Here, There and Over There).
