Martin Ssempa on Michael Jackson

Aaron Kirunda

A public memorial service for Pop Star Michael Jackson was held on Tuesday at Staples Centre in California. But before this, Ugandans had converged at several bars to mourn the man who brought the moonwalk. The organizers included Pastors Peter Ssematimba and Martin Ssempa. Among the people in attendance was veteran educationist Fagil Mande. Before your jaw drops, yes, Uganda once boasted of real dancers. They may be a bit thick around the waist now, but decades ago, they could wriggle, moonwalk, break-dance and shake it. Some, like Sematimba, still do.
I cannot imagine the Rubaga Division Chairman or the now burly sports journalist Mark Ssali spinning at 360 degrees. But they once did.

Pastor Martin Ssempa

Before Pr. Ssempa went about preaching the gospel and fighting homosexuality, he was a dancer. He used to do it like Michael Jackson too and confesses that “I used to watch MJ videos when I was part of the All African Disco Championship in 1986. I was his fan and apart from his crotch-grabbing, I thought his dancing was inspirational.”
At these national and regional (East African) competitions, he emerged winner.
“I wanted to watch the competition but did not have money so I joined the competition as a participant. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to go through [it all] since I didn’t think I could dance and hoped people would boo me off [the] stage. They didn’t and I won.”

Pr. Ssempa still dances and if you want to catch him doing his thing, then you should visit his church, Makerere Community Church or catch him at a Papa San Concert or Prime Time at the Makerere Swimming Pool. He admits though that he is an “off-layer” when it comes to “break dance”. He does not divide the world into secular and sacred therefore he does not think that holding memorials for MJ is secular. Well, that rests our case over what he was doing on WBS’ Jam Agenda then. He was mourning a great man.