When MTN handed us that monstrous brief in 2008 – “market and print tickets for the first-ever UB40 concert in Uganda” – it sounded easy enough. Until someone whispered two terrifying words: Nasser road.
Anyone who has worked in advertising in Kampala knows that is where fakes are born and live long happy lives. So, printing concert tickets that couldn’t be replicated? That was no small mission.
At QG Saatchi & Saatchi (now QG Group Ug ), we huddled, argued, and dreamed in technicolor. Security printing in Germany? Too costly. Metallic paper? Too flashy. But then came Graphic Systems Uganda Ltd (GSUL) in Luzira, armed with a brand new HP Indigo 5000 press – a digital beast from Israel that could serialize every ticket with unique barcodes. It sounded like witchcraft at the time. And manning that humming machine was Fred Michael – calm, precise, and quietly brilliant – alongside Vishal Pol, another unsung wizard of Luzira’s print temple.
We camped in that chilled press room for nights that melted into mornings. Changing designs, adjusting barcodes, outsmarting Nasser Road schemers one pixel at a time.
One of the experts at GSUL was now the late Fred Michael Wesamoyo, who would grin- that tired but mischievous grin, saying, “These bu-barcodes are going to haunt me.” They did – in the best way possible.
When the tickets finally rolled out – with other branding materials, they were flawless. And at Lugogo, UB40 played to a packed house, every stub authentic – every moment worth it.
Years later, the Guvnor Uganda Oldskool group became our digital pub – where Wesamoyo dropped jazz tracks, smooth like his print finishes. His last post, October 1, 2025, read simply: “Soothing jazz for lunch hour.” How fitting.
This morning, the jazz stopped. The Indigo hum went silent. Fred Michael Wesamoyo – craftsman, friend, and one of Luzira’s finest – has gone to join the angels’ band. I can almost hear them tuning up, smooth jazz floating through the clouds.
Rest easy, Fred. You printed memories that time itself can’t duplicate.
