Actor John Ssegawa dedicates every Saturday to his family; Trevor Albert Tamale, Seanice Franchesca Nagawa and Sean David Kamulegeya.
Last Saturday, he was found relaxed, watching the three swimming at Fairway Hotel.
“From here we are heading to Proline Academy (football academy) so that they do some little drills and I have to be there and watch them because as a sports lover I want them to either play for Arsenal or KCC, the teams I support,” he said. “But unfortunately Trevor is a Manchester United supporter.”
Despite not living with his children, Ssegawa makes sure that he follows their day-to-day programme, “like how they have gone to and left school, and I want them to grow up together and play together”. That, he says, is why he dedicates a lot of time to them.
Also, Ssegawa does not want his children being as stubborn as he admits he was in his early years, leading him to go to so many schools. “My father (Daniel Ssekiziyivu) wanted me in priesthood and when one day Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga (RIP) and Monsignor Joseph Obunga visited our home, they suggested that I be enrolled in Kisubi Seminary but my father insisted that I finish primary seven first,” he recalls. But when he finished P.7, Ssegwa instead joined St. Henry’s College, Kitovu. With that faded the desire of becoming a priest, he says.
Ssegawa became an actor in 1994 when he teamed up with Abby Mukiibi and Mariam Ndagire to start Afri Talent. He has since featured in every Afri Talent play, including Essokomezi, Safari and Ensitaano. He has also acted in a movie, Once Upon a Home.
A former teacher of Fine Art at the defunct Pride Academy, Ssegawa does not dream of going back to the classroom although he has a vision of setting up educational institutions; from a kindergarten to a vocational school, in Mubende. This is one of the projects he is involved in with his father.
“Mubende people need a lot of education; their economic background is in a sorry state,” he says.
Through his company, Crystal Label, Ssegawa has a dream of promoting art in schools so that when artistes like him retire, others come up to take their place. He also plans to go into movies since the industry is growing fast.
Women of his life
Ssegawa’s love life has been subject of immense speculation, particularly in the tabloid press. When I ask him about it, he is surprisingly quick to say that he had a wonderful relationship with “two beautiful ladies in town” but now “he is single but not searching”.
He added: “We now have what they call a father and mother relationship… not a big deal and I hope that is what you wanted to hear.”
Indeed Ssegawa has three children with two prominent women, both of them artistes; two with Ruth Wanyana, and one with Mariam Ndagire.
Plaited hair?
Asked about his rather girlie style of plaited hair, Ssegawa says that actually his hair is just “twisted” and not “plaited” as many think.
“Before I joined art I was a prisoner of fashion, from head to toe; ties and suits were the order of the day, but when I committed my future to art I decided to switch to T-shirt and jeans,” he says.
Ssegawa insists people should judge his interior not the exterior.
“How many times are we supposed to do things to please other people? You enter a church and everyone looks at you. Maybe when I change profession, I will change style,” he says, clearly irritated by the attention paid to his unique hair style.
A womanizer?
He says that is a Red Pepper label. “They are just obsessed with individuals; they make it a point to make a story - true or not. It used to affect us [with Ndagire and Wanyana]. I talked to them and they seem to be understanding, but before I even reached my car they had another story. So now it has become normal and since they target certain personalities at a certain time, mine will also come to an end,” he said. “One time they wrote that Wanyana had given birth to a baby boy and had the measurements of his ‘whopper’, yet the child was a girl. This is when I went to them and they apologised, but the following day they had another false story about me as if for them they are very clean,” he said.
