KAMPALA – The 31-year old former NTV and NBS news anchor, Sheila Nduhukire is a Ugandan senior Journalist. She is the current Principal Public Relations Officer/Manager at the Entebbe based National Medical Stores.
Nduhukire was born on the 23rd of April 1990 in Kazo district to Rt. Rev Stephen Namanya, the current Bishop of North Ankole Diocese, and Lydia Namanya, a retired teacher. She is the second born in a family of seven.
She had her primary education at Kabatereine memorial school in Mbarara before joining Uganda Martyrs Namugongo SS for O’Level and then Bweranyangi girls for A-Level education. Due to her excellent performance in the final exams, she got a government scholarship on quota system to pursue a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST).
Nduhukire’s turning point is a stretch that starts at Mbarara University. In her first year at campus, she was elected Chief Fresher and the experience in student leadership gained from this position gave her courage to contest for the Guild President Office the following year. She had initially applied for Guild Speaker but later changed her mind for the top office and in a heated election, she successfully floored five other men becoming the first female guild president of the university since its inception in 1989.
What the guild presidency did was to throw her out there and broaden her circles. Towards the end of her university education in 2013, she found her way into Kampala, and into the Daily Monitor newsroom where she was sent to the Nation Media Lab in Nairobi for a nine-month training in print, radio and TV journalism.
While in Nairobi, her trainers recommended to the Nation Media offices in Uganda that she is good on TV better that the print media and when she returned to Uganda after the course, she was forwarded to the then head of the news department at NTV, Mourice Mugisha for a broadcast test and was immediately taken on as a news reporter on 17th March 2014. She reported news for only 7 months before becoming an anchor.
While at NTV, Sheila quickly made a name for herself because of her boldness, resilience and never settling in the comfort zone. If it meant ambushing the president for a quick interview, despite the intorrelant security detail, Sheila would . She remains the first and only journalist in Uganda to have conducted an exclusive interview with the first lady and the first son despite their known resentment to media interviews.
Her courageous reporting on the 2016 general elections awed many viewers. Her feature reporting stories like the under-age prostitution in refugee camps impressed Ugandans and on several occasions, she came out as a fearless and intelligent journalist.
In June 2018, she was transferred to NTV’s sister station in Kenya. After a brief stint at NTV Kenya, Nduhukire went to the UK to pursue a Master’s Degree in International Public Relations and Global Communications Management at Cardiff University under the Chavening Scholarship Program. She recently revealed in a tweet that while in UK, she got a partime job as a waitress at the famous McDonald’s restaurant to get her upkeep. On return from the UK, she was spotted by the Next Media CEO, Kin Kariisa and was unveiled in November 2019 as a member of the NBS team as a news anchor with a good pay deal.
She recently moved on to head the public relations department at the Entebbe based National Medical Stores, replacing Hon. Dan Atwijukire Kimosho who joined elective politics eventually becoming Member of Parliament for Kazo County in Kazo district where Sheila hails from.
