How Andrew Mwenda, Obama inspired Frank Gashumba

The controversial social commentator said he also drew inspiration from the journalist Andrew Mwenda.

In an interview, Gashumba said he visited Andrew Mwenda for the first time when he was staying at Makerere University.

"He is the first journalist I saw with a library, so I said, oh, this person is resourceful because he reads a lot,” said Gashumba. “So I realized you can't disperse information unless you read."

Frank Gashumba, who now works with Mwenda under the MK Movement, said he never participated in public speaking all throughout school.

"The circumstances... bring out who we are," he said, adding that people he studied with, even at university, see a different person now

He said Obama inspired him to speak and Mwenda to read.

Gashumba recently revealed he used to wake up his daughter Sheilah to join him in praying for former Obama.

Obama, who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017, ran against former U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2008 highly-contested Democratic Party presidential primaries.

A quick Google search shows Sheilah was born on February 7, 1996, implying she was 12 at the time.

"I saw Barack Obama telling us that we can be what we want to be. 2008, no one thought that a black man could become a U.S. president,” said Gashumba in an interview with Crystal Newman. “And I remember telling my friends that you know what, I'm praying for this man to be a U.S. president, and they were telling me, you man, you're mentally unstable, a black man can't be a U.S. president. I remember waking up with my daughter Sheilah to pray for that man. Because I knew the moment he becomes a president, the pace will be up.”

Frank Gashumba said he also prayed for Hilary Clinton when she run again in the 2016 presidential election, as she would be an inspiration to ladies.

A social commentator, in that interview, Gashumba said he never got involved in public speaking until he saw Obama in 2008.

According to Frank Gashumba, his grandparents migrated to Uganda in 1923 and they first settled in Ankole (Mbarara), but things didn't work out and they ended up in Masaka.

He said that he and his father were born in Masaka.

Gashumba, who is now involved in politics and business, said he went to St. Francis Villa Maria Primary School in Masaka, Aga Khan S.S. in Masaka and Nkumba University.