SOUTHERN PROVINCE HUYE – Thousands of mourners during the weekend thronged Butare Cathedral to pay their last respects to Father Emmanuel Kayumba. Father Kayumba who was the head teacher of the academic power house, Groupe Scolaire Officielle de Butare, died of hypertension in a Nairobi Hospital last Tuesday. He had also served as a commissioner with the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) since 2003. Delivering President Paul Kagame’s condolence message during the burial ceremony, the Minister in the President’s Office, Solina Nyirahabimana said that the deceased was a man of integrity who served his country diligently. “His service and dedication to work is unrivalled. Our duty now is to strive to accomplish what he started,” said Nyirahabimana. The Minister said that all well deserving people should always strive for excellence. “It is not how long one lives but what they accomplish during their lifetime that is paramount,” she said. Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, the President of the NURC, described the late Kayumba as a man who ensured that he completed all the tasks he undertook. “He was selfless in his dedication to work. He was a disciplinarian who inculcated a culture of excellence in the students he headed,” Habyarimana said in his eulogy. Groupe Scolaire Officielle de Butare was among the few schools in the country where no cases of genocide ideology were reported after an investigation conducted by Parliament last year. Different speakers hailed Father Kayumba for making GSOB a centre of academic excellence since he joined the school in 2003. “He provided able leadership that translated into academic excellence over the last fourteen years,” said Ildefonse Gasana, the district Vice Mayor in charge of Economic Affairs. Father Kayumba was born in 1954. He attained primary school education in Kiziguro, currently in Gatsibo district of the Eastern Province. He attended Zaza Minor Seminary after which he went in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he served as a Marist Brother. He studied Theology at the Nyakibanda Minor Seminary from where he was ordained priest in 1990. He was appointed head teacher of GSOB in 1995. Ends
