Pastor George Okudi

Pastor George Okudi has done us proud. The super-charismatic pastor beat the South Africans and Congolese to become Africa’s best Male artist at a glamorous occasion, which had performances by American artists Ludacris and Angie Stone. When the news broke at approximately midnight on Saturday night (or should I say Sunday morning), the entire Kampala started celebrating and SMS’s moved from cellular to cellular to break the good news about Uganda’s newest hero.

Pr. Okudi was visibly overjoyed to receive especially the second award for his praise-and-worship hit, ‘Wipolo’. He walked onto stage, paused to execute his usual trademark dance spasm, as we remember from the PAM Awards before proceeding to receive the award for best male African artist for the year 2003.He is the greatest discovery that the PAMAs have made for Africa so far. Here, I give due credit.

This is not only an achievement for the pastor but for the entire Uganda. He dedicated it to all Ugandan musicians when Bebe Cool (another nominee from Uganda) who had carried him in celebration put him down. Pastor Okudi said that his mother could pass out if she heard he had won the award and that his wife, who is five month’s pregnant could give birth in an instant when she received the great news. Makes me wonder who took the responsibility of gently breaking the news to his family.. They must have been watching anyway.

The Pastor is supposed to jet in today (9th Dec) from South Africa. He also thanked his sponsors, East African Airways who flew him down south in the cockpit (first class), and the president for encouraging peacefulness development of the country.

Here is another reason to celebrate; Pastor Okudi is probably the nearest that Uganda will ever get to winning the African Cup of nations in the near future. During this age when we are being starved of national heroes in other fields, music has done it through the pastor. The awards attracted over 500 million viewers worldwide and especially in Africa and George is now a celebrity. He can now safely be added to the hero list with Dorcus Inzikuru, John Akibua and Gaetano Kagwa (this is my opinion).

The awards were also a success for Africa because they proved that the Koras are free and fair and that as long as you have what it takes, you can be the best. How is the award going to affect Pastor Okudi’s life and career?

Why did he really win? He had to win the hearts of people before he could win the award. He is a simple peaceful and kind man who dances a bit like Michael Jackson when the music gets to him. He also enjoys his music a lot, which probably does the trick. You can’t expect the rest of Africa to believe in your music unless you do so yourself. He is always at the same emotional level with the tunes when he performs and you can’t help but love the music even when you don’t understand the language.

We shall make efforts to contact Pastor George Okudi when he gets back and settles down so please watch this space.

May God continue to bless Pastor George Okudi.