Ugandan-born Kassim Kayira, a long-serving journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has finally quit the London based media giants for Azam TV as the East African Chief Correspondent covering Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and South Sudan.
However, ChimpLyf understands that Kayira is targeting to run his own farming business in his mother country, Uganda.
While speaking to ChimpLyf’s Farouk Twesigye on Phoneon Friday, Kassim said, “I’ve been with the BBC for 10 years now and I’m among the few presenters and producers that have worked on several programmes especially because I speak 12 languages including  English, Arabic, Swahili and nine African languages.”


Speaking of his long eventful journey in journalism, Kassim said, “I’m ‘retiring’ to embark on a new challenge back home. I joined the BBC in 2005 as a presenter in the Great Lakes Service presenting Kinyarwanda-Kirundi news, went on to work on the BBC’s biggest continental programmes, Network Africa and Focus on Africa. In 2012, I joined BBC Dira TV as presenter/ producer in Kiswahili where I’ve been till today. I’ve been reporting some of the most dangerous conflicts in the world including the war in Congo and the Central African Republic. I did a big expose on illegal migration to Europe from Africa (breaking into Britain on YouTube) and went on to report on migration for the BBC. I have been one of BBC’s Great lakes experts, so, basically it has been a rewarding journey.”
“One of the things that have made me quit the mighty BBC to go back home is because I want to be self employed as a commercial farmer and at the same an Azam TV correspondent in the whole of East Africa,” he added.
“I’ll be based in Kampala as Azam TV’s east Africa chief correspondent and running my farm of which I have already started in Luweero (Wobulenzi) so I’d like to spend more time on it but also keep that big job at Azam,” he exclusively told ChimpLyf.