Who is Ashraf Ssemwogerere? Flash Uganda Media looks at his biography, age, wife, family, tribe, achievements, and relationship with Abdallah Mukiibi and Sarah Nankabirwa, Sarah Ssemwogerere, Sharifa, Ruth Wanyana, Sheila Nvannugi, Moses Ojomba, Dr Aggrey Kiyingi and the early life and education of a Ugandan film actor, author, Screenwriter, director, stage actor and dentist by profession
Ashraf Ssemwogerere commonly known as Hajj Ashraf is a Ugandan film actor, author, Screenwriter, director, stage actor and dentist by profession.
Hajj Ashraf is the Director or Chairman of Pearl Afric film industries ltd.
Early Life and Education
Ashraf Ssemwogerere was born on August 24, 1963, at 4:00 p.m. in Kakonge, Busukuma, Kyadondo, Wakiso District, as the first child of Abdallah Mukiibi and Sarah Nankabirwa.
He is the father of six children, including Sarah Ssemwogerere, and the spouse of Sharifa.
He was a natural talker and wordsmith as a child. As he grew older, he turned these words into acts.
Ssemwogerere abandoned a potentially lucrative dentistry practice for the stage at a period when acting was frowned upon in Uganda. However, with good reason. The acting was the trade that financed his secondary school fees while his father was in exile.
Mukiibi Budala Wakayima, Ssemwogere’s father, was forced to escape his village in Namulonge for his life as a suspected National Resistance Movement participant. He relocated to Busoga.
Ssemwogerere was left on his own as a result. Ssemwogerere joined Omugave Ndugwa’s Black Pearls in 1982 while still a young student at Old Kampala Senior Secondary School.
Ssemwogerere’s passion for acting, however, goes beyond his basic survival needs as a secondary school student. Ssemwogerere showed an early interest in acting while attending Kabonge Primary School. He also participated in a community ensemble called the Kabonge Golden Singers.
Although Ssemwogerere Katende, a relative and childhood friend characterised him as extremely intelligent throughout his school years, balancing school and theatre took a toll on his classwork.
Ssemwogerere decided to repeat high school in Jinja’s Wairaka College (now Muljabhai Madhvani College) after having a lacklustre A’ Level performance.
He then enrolled at Makerere University to pursue a Bsc in dentistry and medicine.
Ashraf Ssemwogerere never gave up on his theatre career despite his academic success. If anything, he was exceptional, moving from acting to playwriting.
Career and Professional Work Experience
He co-wrote his first play, Engabo Yaddako (the next president), in 1991 while still performing under the Black Pearls with singer/actress Mariam Ndagire.
The following year, the team wrote Omuyaga Mumako, their second play.
Around this time, Ssemwogerere met Sharifa, who was working as an intern teacher at Kaggwa Road Primary School while attending Kibuli Teacher Training School.
Ashraf made the decision to strike out on his own after the astounding success of his debut plays.
Ssemwogerere still serves as the artistic director of Diamonds Ensemble, which he created in 1994 along with Mariam Ndagire and Kato Lubwama.
Ruth Wanyana and Sheila Nvannugi, two young actresses, later joined Ssemwogerere and his colleagues.
Later that year, in August 1994, Diamond Ensemble produced Akafubutuko (The Rush), another Ssemwogerere-Ndagire collaboration.
They later assisted in the improvement of Abbey Mukiibi’s script for Order: Kiragiro. Mukiibi, who split from Black Pearls, had created Afri-Talent, another theatre troupe. In the years that followed, the two organisations collaborated closely, occasionally trading actors.
In 1996, at the height of their collaboration, they established Afri-Diamonds. They presented noteworthy pieces like as Perepetwa and Maswanku, both collaborations between Ssemwogerere and Ndagire, which Ssemwogerere describes as his favourite.
Unfortunately, Afri-Diamonds had vanished by the millennium’s turn. However, even at that point, Ssemwogerere’s works spoke for themselves: Kikunta Ekungu; Emisanvu and Omuyaga Mumako (both re-enactments of earlier Black Pearls productions); Safari; Enyota and Bakisimba Mu Dwaniro amongst others.
Ssemwogerere, who had been assigned to Kibibi Hospital in Ngomba, Butambala, had since left and established the Nabikolo Memorial Clinic in Nateete.
He had enrolled in a certificate in Music Dance & Drama, majoring in drama, while juggling his dental practice with acting. He persuaded his wife, a third-grade teacher, to take the same course. They finished together.
In the early 2000s, Ashraf became interested in television and scripted the WBS TV series London Shock. Mutuze (The Inhabitant), his second TV series, debuted on UBC TV as well.
Achievements and Awards
Dr Ashraf Ssemwogerere is an award-winning author, writer, film producer, performing artist, and professional dentist.
Feelings Struggle, directed by Ashraf Ssemwogerere, was the first Ugawood film (Kinauganda by the locals).
He was named one of Uganda’s National Heroes in 2016. Dr Ssemwogerere is a well-known personality in Ugandan theatre, having written and produced plays like as ‘Suubi’ and ‘Mukajanga’.
He gained prominence with his film Mukajanga (“The Passion of the Ugandan Martyrs”), which told the story of a group of Buganda royals who were murdered for their Christian religion by Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda.
Ashraf’s other films include The Honourable and Murder in the City, which is based on the murder of Aggrey Kiyingi’s wife, Robinah Kiyingi.
He plays Ireene in Lukyamuzi Bashir’s film Bala Bala Sese (2015).
Controversies
Semwogerere was kidnapped by unidentified people in Kinawataka on the night of October 16, 2006, just after his new play Murder in the City premiered at the National Theatre.
Soon after, a man calling from a Kampala public phone claimed to be the artiste and demanded the film script or Ssemwogerere would be assassinated.
At 2:00 a.m. Monday, Moses Ojomba, a pedestrian, discovered the actor tied up with ropes on the railway line in Kinawataka, Nakawa division. According to police, Ojomba reacted to Ssemwogerere’s cries for help. The two then proceeded 600 metres to the Kireka Police Station.
The film that was threatening Ssemwogerere’s life was not without criticism. Dr Aggrey Kiyingi, an Australian-based cardiologist on trial in the High Court for allegedly murdering his wife, Robinah, took Ssemwogerere to court, seeking an injunction against the film’s production.
Although Ssemwogerere argued the movie had nothing to do with the Kiyingi case, the court ordered him to deliver the script.
According to people close to Ssemwogerere, he expressed a desire to write a film script based on the events surrounding the Kiyingi murder trial. They claimed that the actor had not even begun working on the script when he was hauled into court.
Aside from the Kiyingi lawsuit, the film was apparently avoided like the plague by local actors. According to film producer Ronnie Kyeyune, Ssemwogerere was not supposed to portray the lead. He was compelled to take on the role after the person he had brought to London to film the foreign part vanished.
Ssemwogerere is no stranger to antagonism as a result of his work. In Diamonds Ensemble’s tragicomedy, Okufa N’obutanywanga, while playing Dubu, an elected Katikiiro who usurps the king’s power, a devoted traditionalist passionately tossed a bottle of mineral water at him when the actor’s character smacked the Kabaka (played by Joseph Ssenabulya).
Shortly before that incident, an enraged Rakai audience assaulted the performer with bottles and stones over the same play. He was forced to wear a helmet in order to complete the play.
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