In the early hours of Saturday, Cedric Babu Ndilima, a former tennis champion, media personality, political aspirant and father, passed away at Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi.
He was 46.
Uganda grieved. But even in this moment of loss, the nation also exposed something darker: a festering culture where political differences have dulled our humanity.
As tributes poured in from across the political and social spectrum, another wave surged – one less gracious, more venomous. On social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), a shocking number of Ugandans mocked not just Cedric’s death, but also the family’s desperate public appeal for Shs1.5 billion to fund a heart transplant. The cruelty was chilling.
Among those who voiced dismay was former public relations guru and now public health specialist Patrick Oyulu.
“When a country celebrates – or is indifferent to – the pain of another human being, then we are not engaging in resistance,” Oyulu said from the United States, where he now resides.
“We are becoming the very thing we claim to oppose. In Alur culture, those who celebrate misfortune are called Ja-jjok – witches. And Twitter has become a coven of ju-jjogis.”
Cedric, a son of prominent figures – veteran politician Capt. Francis Babu and Olive Zaitun Kigongo, the CEO of the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce – was far from unknown. His life had touched sport, business, arts and, more recently, politics.
As Vice Chairman for Kampala on the Central Committee of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), he was seen as a close ally of First Son and Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
It is this affiliation, many suspect, that made Cedric’s vulnerability a lightning rod for online attacks.
Yet those who knew Cedric personally speak of a man whose ambition was never matched by arrogance, and whose loyalty to Uganda was reflected in how many corners of public life he touched.
“Cedric stood out amongst his peers,” Gen Muhoozi said in a moving tribute. “He had a passion for sports… he was a nationalist and a patriot. Where many children of Uganda’s elite families eschew politics, Cedric had the courage to participate in the governance of his country.”
Victoria University Vice Chancellor Lawrence Muganga echoed the sentiment. “Cedric was a true friend, a visionary, a connector, and a kind-hearted man who gave his all to the people and causes he believed in. His absence leaves a space that words cannot quite fill.”
But many on social media showed no such tenderness. In what felt like a grotesque reversal of compassion, even Cedric’s proximity to power became grounds for vilification.
“Tell me your friend and I’ll tell you who you are,” one X user posted. “Despite being said to be a good man, those around him – his dad inclusive – made him face the cruelest moment of his life as he breathed his last.”
To some extent, the public reaction may have reflected broader frustrations: why should a man surrounded by powerful friends – Museveni, Muhoozi, Mawanda, Kigongo – be reduced to crowd-funding for life-saving treatment?
Yet the question, valid as it may be, was too often asked not with urgency or reform in mind, but with bile. There is a difference between accountability and cruelty.
The former demands better of systems; the latter extracts mockery from suffering.
And Cedric Babu suffered.
His health crisis began with a heart attack in Kigali, Rwanda. He was later airlifted to Nairobi, where he remained in intensive care as his family scrambled to raise the funds needed for a transplant.
For many, that effort should have rallied empathy. It didn’t.
“There’s a line from Jeffrey Osborne that I keep returning to,” Oyulu reflected. “‘If my brother is in trouble, so am I.’ That should be our posture as a nation. But now it feels like we’ve become spectators to each other’s pain – or worse, cheerleaders of it.”
The phrase echoes a deeper warning by city lawyer David F.K. Mpanga, who has previously cautioned, “We shall never see the Uganda we love, until we develop a central nervous system that enables us see the pain in the other.”
This collapse of empathy has not been one-sided. It is not just the opposition. Several ruling party supporters, such as a one Frank Mwesigye, have gained infamy for celebrating the misfortunes of those in opposition.
Uganda’s politics, increasingly zero-sum in nature, has bred a culture where death, illness, and misfortune are no longer off-limits for partisan point-scoring.
It was not always like this.
Cedric’s generation – born in the 1970s and 80s – was raised in a country where public disagreement was dangerous, but private solidarity often remained intact.
Political foes attended each other’s weddings. They mourned together. A funeral was sacred, a moment of collective decency. Now, funerals trend online for all the wrong reasons.
It is tempting to blame social media alone – the anonymity, the speed, the gamification of likes and reposts. But social media is only the amplifier. The rot lies in the source material: us.
We who have forgotten that a young widow now faces life without her husband; that three boys will grow up without a father; that a man who once raised Uganda’s tennis flag high on international courts died needing a generosity that never fully came.
Andrew Mwenda, one of Cedric’s oldest friends, perhaps captured this best: “Handsome, loving, intelligent, passionate and filled with big dreams, Cedric lived a full life and died with grace.”
And yet, grace was not what met him in his hour of greatest need.
His legacy – from his early days as a tennis prodigy to his founding of Kinetic Management Group, his mentorship of young artists, and his foray into politics – reflects a man who believed in doing, not just being.
He once played the role of Mr Stephen Amaru in Beneath the Lies, and many will remember him not just for that, but for how sincerely he lived offscreen.
For those who mocked his pain, his family’s plea, and ultimately his passing, there should be reflection. Is this the resistance we’re proud of? A culture that rejoices when another Ugandan – because they dared to affiliate with the “wrong” camp – suffers and dies?
“Empathy is not an ideology,” Oyulu said. “It’s a human instinct. When we abandon it, we don’t become activists. We become monsters.”
The death of Cedric Babu Ndilima should have been a national moment of unity – a time to put politics aside, to mourn a man who, whether you agreed with his politics or not, gave of himself to this country.
Instead, it exposed just how deep our wounds are.
Let us not dishonour his memory by continuing down this path. Cedric lived as a bridge across sectors, classes, and causes. He deserved better. And so does Uganda.
Rest well, Old Boy. May your grace outlive our cruelty.