‘Missionary
for Justice’
By
Justice Fredrick Egonda Ntende
St
Luke’s Church, Makoka
Kamuli
District
24.10.2026
Sometime
in 2010 while I was serving as Chief Justice of Seychelles a mutual friend
arranged a meeting with Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, the Apostolic Nuncio to
the Indian Ocean Islands, who was visiting Seychelles to say farewell to the
Government of Seychelles. He had been reassigned to Nigeria. We discussed many
matters in our meeting. Among other things he told me, ‘You are a Missionary
for Justice. Serve God’s people.’ Or words to that effect as I recall from
memory.
Missionary
work is often associated with religious endeavours outside one’s home country.
Who was I to question the Vatican’s Representative who had issued this charge?
Would you be a judge or Chief Justice for that matter and a missionary for
Justice at the same time. Why not? I suppose this question will one day be
settled by a doctoral candidate defending his dissertation. In the meantime, I
humbly accepted this charge from Archbishop Kasujja that I was a Missionary for
Justice. I come today with my family and you my friends to give thanks to the
Almighty for what He has enabled us to accomplish from the date of my birth to
this day, after I retired from public service.
I
have elsewhere told the story of how I eventually got into Judicial service and
maybe for completeness of my story today I will restate it very briefly. The
year was 1991. I had practised law for about 10 years. The Member of Parliament
for Bugabula County, my brother and friend, Professor Wilson Nadiope had passed
on. Some pressure was mounted on me to seek to replace him. I started
consulting. At the time I was the Chancellor of Busoga Diocese. I chose to
visit Bishop Bamwoze and let me know the direction I was about to take. I went
to his home in Naminage. He asked me, ‘Who told you that is God’s plan for
your life?’ I was stuck with no obvious answer. He told me, ‘Let us pray
that the Lord himself will show us his plan for your life.’ We did pray
before we parted and thereafter every evening in our family devotion at home, we
prayed for God’s plan to be revealed to us.
A
few weeks later I was attending a conference at Makerere University when I met
Chief Justice S S Wambuzi and he asked me, ‘Had the Attorney General talked to
me?’ I said, ‘No.’ He then told that they had offered me the post of a Judge of
the High Court of Uganda and they had asked the Attorney General to communicate
the offer and obtain my response before they could ahead. To cut the long story
short I did accept and I was sworn into office in November 1991. As a family we
took it that the Lord had answered our prayer and revealed his plan for my
life.
For
the last 35 years the Lord has often spoken to me about my work and the path I
should take ‘through some people’. One of these I believe was our brother, the
Hon Mr Justice Kityo. Through him I learnt that the position you played at in
the Team Judiciary was simply not determined by the Captain, or Coach; or your
performance but a complicated and intricate architecture. When nothing came of
my nomination by JSC to the Supreme Court in 1994 I was not downcast. I
concentrated on raising my skill and competency levels. I applied and obtained
a professional development programme supported by the USA Government, the
Humphrey Fellowship. I was supposed to commence the programme in 1996 but ‘my
brother’ as he was called ‘tongue in the cheek’ by my colleagues, the Chief
Justice asked me to defer the same for one year and I went in 1997/1998. I concentrated on Human Rights, Courts and
Technology, and Continuing Judicial Education, which equipped me with both
knowledge and skills that would stand me in good stead both at home and in my
missionary journeys abroad.
In
the year 1999 I was deployed to East Timor, Asia, in my first missionary
journey for Justice. Subsequently I was deployed to Kosovo, Europe in 2002 to
2004 in my second missionary journey for justice. Both these societies were
recovering from turmoil. In 2009 I was deployed on my last or rather, third
missionary journey to Seychelles as Chief Justice. In 2008 an Advocate had
chosen to write an anonymous letter to me stating that I was to be appointed
Chief Justice. Indeed hardly 12 months later I was appointed Chief Justice of
Seychelles. I later came to identify the author of that letter but he prefers
for both the letter not to be published nor himself named! I have given him my
word I will not out him.
Had
the appointment to the Supreme Court materialised it would not have been
possible for me to undertake the 3 missionary journeys or tours of duty that I
undertook. Once appointed to the highest court in the land, there is very
limited room for manoeuvre. Indeed God does no wrong.
I
had always intimated to my family and friends that I intended to retire upon
attaining the age of 60 years old as permitted by the Constitution. One evening
our youngest, now Dr Jonathan Kiwudhu, heard of this while we were at dinner
with some guests. He probably had not quite completed Primary School. He put up
his hand and objected. ‘Excuse me Sir. Are you talking about retirement?
What about me? Who will pay my school fees? My siblings may not have enough
money to do so?’ I told him that I had made arrangements to take care of
him even in retirement. He was not convinced. As a result of this intervention
I chose to serve out my full term and comply with God’s plan for my life. Last
year he graduated and this year he completed his internship with National
Referral Hospital, Mulago. I retired on 15.06.2026!
Many
of you may have heard that on the 19th September 2026 at about
9.45am, we, (my aide, Charles Wakabi, Margaret and I), were involved in a
motor accident when our vehicle’s right front wheel disengaged from the vehicle,
flying away, as we were exiting Kla / Ebb Expressway at Kajjansi. The Lord
intervened and we were saved from loss of life or limb! We return the Glory to
the Almighty.
I
thank the Almighty for providing me with many counsellors, (ordained and lay),
the Jethro(s) (Moses’ father-in-law), in my life who were able at
different points in my journey to offer helpful counsel and steer me towards
the fulfilment of God’s plan for my life. I thank the Almighty for the gift of life,
family; my spouse, our parents, our siblings, our children, our grandchildren,
the larger family of which we form part, and you all, we are privileged to call
our friends, with whom we have walked this journey so far. And I have hope with
whom we shall walk the rest of our journey.
Where
I have failed the blame lies squarely with me and I seek God’s forgiveness and
mercy.
I will end with the words of the Psalmist, in Psalm
116 verses 12 to 13.
‘12.
What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?
13.
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the
name of the Lord.’
I thank you all, not only for listening to me, but for
joining us, as a family and friends, as we return thanks to the Lord for his
goodness to us.
May the Almighty Bless you all.
Fredrick
Egonda Ntende
St
Luke’s Church, Makoka
24.10.2026
