Mr Eden Kironde had no vivid recollections of Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the teenager who interned at Daily Monitor 18 years ago. When I shared with him a story he once co-authored with Mamdani, now the New York Mayor-elect, back in July 2007, he was quick to call back. ‘Are you serious that’s him?’ he asked, laughing in disbelief. I confirmed, and we both chuckled.
‘He was just a boy with a clean face. Is that the man we now see with all those beards?’ Mr Kironde said, bemused. My job was to jog his memory, which I gladly did for about ten minutes. What we both recalled most vividly was that wide, disarming smile. Like many teenagers, Zohran was exploring his passions. Still, being the son of Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani wasn’t something he could easily hide. The moment you saw the surname, the question was inevitable: ‘Are you the son of Professor Mamdani?’
His reply was always swift: ‘Yes, but call me Zohran or Kwame.’ Perhaps, like any young person, he wanted to be known for more than just his famous father.
Zohran had been introduced to the newsroom grind by his father, who referred him to then-political correspondent Angelo Izama. Yet even then, the young intern was eager to look beyond politics. When I once asked why he wasn’t writing for the political desk, he smiled and said he feared that doing so ‘would have Dad called out by the government.’
He wanted to immerse himself in writing, sports, art, and culture. In those days, Zohran worked hard to distance himself from politics at least publicly. Mr James Raymond Ssekandi (now living in the US, with no aspirations for office there) and I joined the newsroom towards the end of 2007. Like Zohran, we were clean-faced, wide-eyed, and full of enthusiasm. We joined as sports writers and found him already there.
Through endless conversations, he discovered I knew quite a bit about cricket and rugby. ‘How can an Indian want to learn cricket from me?’ I would tease, and we’d both laugh. Eager to learn, the ‘kid,’ as we fondly called him, spent much of his time on the sports desk, then tucked away in one corner of the first floor.
‘I supervised Zohran when he was 15 to 16, and he was easily the most deep-thinking teenager I ever came across,’ recalled former Nation Media Group sports editor Mark Namanya.
‘Typically, teens that age are obsessed with the best footballer in the world, and Zohran was indeed a huge fan of Arsenal and Thierry Henry. But what blew me away was his grasp of geopolitical issues. He had a detailed understanding of global politics and articulated his often-radical views with surgical precision. I’m genuinely happy for the lad.’ Despite those insights, Zohran never shared his political opinions beyond office chatter. To us, he was just the Arsenal fan we teased mercilessly until mid-2008, when he left.
When sports was exhausted, he would drift over to chat with Moses Serugo, Henry Ssali, or Rafsanjani Abbey Tatya. His consistent request? ‘Can someone take me to the National Theatre this evening?’ That soon became his second home. His daily routine was simple: arrive at the newsroom around 10am, find a sports story or head to the field, return to trade ideas and jokes all day, and, whenever possible, end the evening at the theatre.
For a teenager, he was far ahead of his time, an unassuming boy trying to steer clear of politics, unaware that one day, it would define his life.
As news broke yesterday morning of his resounding victory in the New York mayoral race, all these memories came flooding back.
At 34, Mr Zohran Kwame Mamdani will become New York City’s youngest mayor since 1892, its first Muslim mayor, and its first mayor born in Africa, at Nsambya Hospital in Kampala, to be exact.
While many of us follow American politics, few could have seen this day coming. Perhaps only Mr Namanya did. Maybe it’s in the genes.