WHY IS THERE NO BOOK WRITTEN ABOUT PROFESSOR JOHNSON ACON? Is this a legacy dying at the hands of writers who won’t write?

When Professor Johnson Acon, lecturer of Surgery at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity (COVAB) in Makerere University, and leading practicing veterinary surgeon in Uganda passed on, I stumbled upon a hastily written Newspaper article from one of our national dailies which going by the style in which it was written and the length of it, one could not determine whether the article was a report on his death or an orbituary. It was too short to be an orbituary, and too much like an orbituary to be an article just reporting his death. The writing was so cringey and embarrassing that, in my opinion, it just should rather have not been written at all. I held my professor in such regard as did so many other people and it pained me to an indescribable depth that he had been, again in my opinion, dishonored by that article. That article did not even begin to scratch the surface of who Professor Johnson Acon was, let alone his accomplishments. His burial was an astronomically better testament to who this man truly was. Yet I never complained any further about it because that person who had written something about the Professor, was way better than myself who had written nothing and had therefore contributed no information at all to preserving the Professor’s life and legacy.

When I heard that Professor Acon had passed on, I made a google search on him, as is my custom whenever a public figure passes on. I normally do it for the purpose of knowing who this person was better but since I reckoned I knew professor in my own way, this google search about him was to consume more information of a man I so greatly admired and respected, from the view of other people’s eyes. I hoped to read articles from the past and in the present saying amazing things about this gentleman but more, I wanted to know that he had been truly important; not just to me but also to other people.

You see, Professor Johnson Acon had an uncharacteristic kindness that could not be turned off; he just had too much of it (if there is any such thing as too much kindness) and it overflowed through him. It was so evident that I immediately perceived that this was a trait he bore to a fault. Despite his strictness and insistence upon a certain standard for his students, there just were simply too many loopholes which his kindness adorably seeped through. The most natural response to this kind of person is and should be utmost respect and humility but knowing the world as it is, people like this often get taken advantage of, cheated, and normally make more sacrifices than other people. In our conversations with Professor Acon, he mentioned it casually and I did not even think of asking about it any further first because I understood it completely but mostly because it felt intrusive and even disrespectful just the thought of even wanting to know any more and I did not want to. Some people, you respect them so much that you do not want to know anything about them that might be too personal. You want to protect their privacy even for themselves.

Going through those articles, though, it did feel undeniably good to read about him and know certain things about him, such as his schooling history and how his life unfurled from being a little child, a young man and finally into arguably Uganda’s leading veterinary surgeon. It was enlightening to read about how he progressed in the ranks from a fresh veterinary graduate to the position of a full professor, a position and title he held up to the time of his death. It was truly beautiful and the worst part of that experience was the absence of enough material written about him to feed that hunger of desiring to know someone that I so dearly admired and respected. Those few pieces of information about him suddenly meant so much now that he was absent because it dawned the sad reality on me that whatever else I might have wanted to know from or about him, I would never now get it. If I ever did, it would never have been as real and as raw as if someone had taken the time to sit down with him, talk to him at length and record his life experiences. Had someone written a book about him while he was still alive, verifying for facts with him, perhaps we would be having a book or a couple of books for coming generations to read about this undoubtedly great man. There would exist a story wrought within it the truth and authenticity of the Professor himself and in this, he would forever have been immortalized, living on forever long after he was gone.

One of the reasons I have decided to take writing seriously is so that I can have enough experience expressing myself so that in due time, I will be able to tell the stories of so many people in books through which their life stories, experiences, perceptions of life and golden nuggets of wisdom will remain for others to learn from.

As it stands, it still bedazzles me that there is no book written about the Legendary Professor.

Yours truly,

Anna Grace