Thank You for Showing Us the Way, Uncle Jeff
My Uncle Jeff, Geoffrey Onegi-Obel, the head of our family, passed away on 18th October 2026, two days short of his 71st birthday. Even now it is still a real shock, and a blow to so many of us who knew him, admired him and were mentored and shaped by him over the years.
I just wanted to take some time to reflect on what he meant to me. As I think back, he seems to appear at different points in my life, looking after me when I was a boy, showing me by his example how to carry myself, and encouraging me later on when I felt like giving up.
The earliest of those points goes back to when I was still a boy, somewhere around the age of 10 to 13. Life had hit my mother hard financially, and she had to look for work and opportunities outside Kampala. She found them in Namasagali, lecturing at the new university there, which meant that she would have to move. It was Uncle Jeff, my Auntie Laker and my cousins who welcomed me into their home, so that her move would not disrupt my education in Kampala. I was too young then to understand how much that was to ask of a family. To them it may have seemed a small thing, one more child at the table. I have come to think that it shaped my worldview, and eventually the path of my life, forever.
It gave me more playtime with Angello (aka Bongo), for a start. We were nearly the same age, and we spent so much time together during those formative years that being cousins slowly became a lifelong friendship and brotherhood. I don’t think it would have happened in quite the same way if we had only met at family gatherings.
It also put me within reach of Uncle Jeff’s books. He loved sci-fi and he loved reading, and that love passed on to us quite naturally, the way these things do when the books are simply there in the house. One of my favourite books came from his library, “As the Crow Flies” by Jeffrey Archer. It made me believe I could change my fortunes, and for a boy whose mother had to leave town to find work, that was no small thing to believe.
Then there was the desktop PC he bought Bongo, which sat in Bongo’s room and opened up the world of software, video games and technology for us. At the time I suppose we thought we were just playing. Much later I would find myself drawn to science, philosophy and computer programming, and when I trace that lifelong interest back, a lot of it leads to that room.
So he had created a home where we could dream big and imagine alternate realities, and I think that alone would have been plenty. But I also remember how he came home. He was a giant in his field of finance and capital markets, the founding chairman of the Uganda Securities Exchange, though I doubt I understood much of that as a boy. To me he was the man who got back in the evenings always smiling, warm and happy to see us. I can only imagine now what stresses and issues he must have carried from work on some of those days. He never brought that energy home. He greeted us with a cool handshake, a fluid slide of palms that locked into a firm finger grip, pulling back just right to release a sharp, satisfying thumb snap. It was a small, practised ritual that made us feel special and cool too. And without saying much, he went about showing us what a good father should be.
I think about that a lot now that I have kids of my own. I can’t help but model what I saw in him as I raise my own little people. I may not always manage it, but I know what it is supposed to look like, because I saw it every evening and every moment he was around. For a young boy growing up with a single mum, seeing that up close meant the world to me. Thank you for showing us the way, Uncle Jeff.
You didn’t stop once I moved back in with my mum. All through secondary school, then university and beyond, you kept checking in on how we were doing, and you kept encouraging me to continue dreaming big and to try a little harder to accomplish those dreams. I have thought about that idea since you passed, because a little harder always seemed possible, even on the days when dreaming big did not.
There is something I never told you, though I think you figured it out. The reason I applied to St Mary’s College Kisubi (SMACK) during my Form 4 was you and Bongo. I wanted to go to the same school that the people I admired went to, and it was as simple as that. And yes, I got in. Not only that, I did so well that I was among the best in the country and got a scholarship to attend the United World College in Hong Kong, a chapter that would change the rest of my life. People might look at that and see a boy who worked hard, and I did. But when I look back, it all started with wanting to be like you.
Since your passing, I have been reading and listening to what others have to say about you, and it has become clear to me that you touched and shaped the lives of far more people than I ever knew. Kenneth Legesi wrote that when he met you in 2008, a civil engineer trying to move into finance, you took him under your wing, treating him “less as a young professional seeking guidance and more as a son”. I recognised you straight away, because I know what it is to be welcomed by you like that. I used to think of what you did for me as something within our family. I see now that you were doing it for a lot of people. You were a good man, a role model and a father figure to so many of us.
Thank you for showing us the way, Uncle Jeff.