Former Vice President Moody Awori has lost his brother, Aggrey Awori.
Awori, a former ICT minister in Uganda, passed away on Monday at around 2pm. He was receiving treatment at a private hospital in Naalya, Kampala when he died.
“He has been sick for about a month and I have been in touch with him until today when his wife, Thelma told me that he has died,” a close friend, Peter Oguttu told Daily Monitor.
Asked what could have killed Awori, Mr Oguttu said, “You know what’s currently going on in the country, but he’s been having pressure and other diseases as well.”
Awori was born on February 23, 1939 to Canon Jeremiah Musungu Awori, an Anglican preacher and Mariamu Odongo Awori, a nurse and community teacher.
He was the 10th of the 17 children. His siblings include; Kenya’s ninth Vice President Moody Awori and Mary Okelo, the founder of Kenya’s women only bank; the Kenya Women Finance Trust.
He attended Nabumali High School in Mbale District and King’s College Budo, in Uganda. He was later selected to join Sandhurst Military College in the United Kingdom, an offer his father rejected.
Read: 91-year-old Ex-Vice President Moody Awori Lands Inter-county Covid-19 Committee Role
Between 1961 and 1965, the deceased attended Harvard University on a scholarship. While at the Ivy league school, Awori became the first person in heptagonal track history to win three events – the long jump, high hurdles, and 60-yard dash, tying the heps record in the hurdles and setting the mark in the dash.
During the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics, Awori who was voted the best legislator in the sixth Parliament, represented Uganda in the 110 metres hurdles.
Awori had a Master of Arts in economics from Syracuse University in the US.
In 1967, Awori was appointed the first local director of Uganda Television (UTV).
In 1971 he was incarcerated for two months for failing to broadcast a speech delivered to him during Idi Amin’s first coup attempt.
He went sought asylum in Kenya where he taught political journalism at the University of Nairobi until 1976 when he left Kenya to travel to other parts of Africa.
Awori served as Minister for Information and Communications Technology from February 16, 2009 to May 27, 2011.
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