Nabbi Omukazi’s Extraordinary HIV Journey: ‘Again, God?’ — The Story of Love, Prison, Loss and a Life She Believes Was Divinely Preserved

UgandaToday: Nabbi Omukazi’s Extraordinary HIV Journey: ‘Again, God?’ — The Story of Love, Prison, Loss and a Life She Believes Was Divinely Preserved

By UgandaToday Editorial Desk

For years, gospel musician and pastor Margaret Nakayima, popularly known as Maggie Kayima or Nabbi Omukazi, has carried a deeply personal story that she says she still struggles to explain.

Her latest HIV test in the United States has once again returned a negative result — a finding that, for her, is not merely a medical result but another chapter in a long and emotionally complicated journey that began nearly two decades ago.

In a deeply reflective account, Kayima says she has undergone HIV testing repeatedly over the years, including after discovering that a man with whom she had shared a long-term relationship was living with HIV.

Her story takes her from Uganda to South Africa, from hospital laboratories to Kigo Prison and, ultimately, to an American doctor’s office where she once again heard the words: “HIV negative.”

For Kayima, the experience has strengthened a conviction she has held for years: that God has protected her through circumstances she believed could destroy her.

‘Again, God?’

Kayima says her most recent test followed extensive blood work ordered by her primary-care doctor in the United States.

When the doctor went through the results with her, everything had come back negative, including HIV.

Instead of simply celebrating the medical result, Kayima says her thoughts immediately travelled back to the beginning of a painful chapter of her life.

“Again, God?”

It was, she says, probably her fifth HIV test over the years — and each negative result has revived memories of the first test that changed her understanding of relationships, fear and faith.

The relationship that changed everything

According to Kayima’s account, the story began around 2008 when she entered a relationship with a powerful man whose HIV status she did not initially know.

Around 2011, while the man was in South Africa, he reportedly became seriously ill and nearly died.

It was then, according to Kayima, that he disclosed that he was HIV-positive and that his CD4 count had fallen dangerously low.

She says that, having been in the relationship for years, she immediately assumed that she too must have acquired HIV.

When the man returned to Uganda, they went together to Mengo Hospital for HIV testing.

The results stunned both of them.

He tested positive.

She tested negative.

Unable to believe the result, Kayima says they went to the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC) for another test.

Again, the results were the same.

He was positive.

She was negative.

JCRC has long worked with HIV prevention and care programmes involving what are medically described as HIV-discordant couples — relationships in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. Research in Uganda has also documented such relationships.

‘You are blessed and protected’

Kayima recalls that the man’s reaction to her repeated negative results left a lasting impression on her.

She says he looked at her for a long time before telling her that he finally understood how blessed and protected she was.

He reportedly told her that he believed AIDS would never be what will take her life and that, when her time eventually comes, it will be from something else.

Those words, Kayima says, remained with her long after the relationship ended and after the man died.

She also reflects on another possibility: that his disbelief may have been rooted in fear.

Once she knew his HIV status while continuing to test negative, he may have feared that she would walk away from the relationship.

But she says she did not.

She stayed.

A story that must be separated from speculation

Kayima’s account does not name the man she describes.

However, her publicly documented relationship history has previously linked her to the late Pastor Augustine Yiga Abizaayo. In a 2020 interview, Kayima said she had been in a relationship with Yiga for eight years and described him as someone with whom she shared a strong connection through music and church life.

Public records and media reports confirm that Yiga died in October 2020 after being treated for liver complications.

Importantly, Kayima’s present account does not explicitly identify the man in her HIV story, and available reporting cited here does not establish that Yiga died from HIV/AIDS. UgandaToday therefore does not present that connection as a confirmed medical fact.

That distinction matters, particularly in reporting about HIV, where assumptions and unverified claims can deepen stigma.

What medicine says about her experience

While Kayima interprets her experience through her Christian faith, medical science also provides an important part of the explanation.

An HIV-positive partner does not automatically transmit HIV to every sexual partner or during every sexual exposure. The CDC explains that different sexual activities carry different levels of risk and that numerous factors can affect whether transmission occurs.

Ugandan research has similarly followed HIV-discordant couples, demonstrating that relationships in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other remains HIV-negative are a recognised medical reality.

Modern HIV treatment has also transformed transmission risk. According to the CDC, when a person living with HIV takes treatment as prescribed and maintains an undetectable viral load, they do not transmit HIV through sex.

Kayima’s story therefore does not contradict HIV science. Rather, it illustrates the reality that HIV transmission involves identifiable biological and behavioural factors and is not an inevitable consequence of being in a relationship with an HIV-positive person.

South Africa: another test, another negative result

The story did not end with the tests in Uganda.

Kayima later travelled to South Africa, where she says she tested again.

The result was still negative.

By then, she says, even she had begun asking questions about what was happening.

For her, the repeated results became intertwined with a growing sense that her life was being preserved through circumstances she had believed would have a different outcome.

The Kigo Prison chapter

Then came another difficult period in her life — Kigo Prison.

Kayima recalls the harsh conditions she experienced there, including being awakened at around 4:00am and ordered outside into the cold.

At one point, she says, she suffered severe nosebleeds that continued for three consecutive days.

As people around her watched, rumours began circulating.

Some apparently assumed that the bleeding was connected to HIV.

But Kayima says a prison doctor reviewed her medical records.

The result was once again negative.

HIV negative.

The experience, she says, became another moment when assumptions about her health collided with documented medical results.

A musician, pastor and survivor of public scrutiny

Beyond the HIV story, Kayima has lived a public life marked by music, church ministry, relationships and controversy.

Public reports identify her as a gospel musician and pastor. She was associated with the late Pastor Augustine Yiga’s Revival Band, a musical platform that helped nurture several Ugandan performers. The Daily Monitor has previously described Yiga’s Revival Band as having produced artists including Maggie Kayima, Hassan Ndugga and Benah Namisinga.

In 2020, Nile Post reported Kayima’s account of her eight-year relationship with Yiga, describing their bond as having grown from their shared love of music and their involvement in church.

Her public journey has not, however, been without legal and personal controversy.

In December 2020, Kayima was remanded to Kigo Prison in connection with charges arising from an alleged scheme involving Pastor Siraje Ssemanda and others. She denied the allegations.

The court proceedings were separate from the HIV narrative she has now shared, but her reference to Kigo adds a striking dimension to her personal testimony because the prison became another setting in which she says her health was subjected to speculation and scrutiny.

From Revival Band to ‘Nabbi Omukazi’

Kayima’s identity as Nabbi Omukazi has become closely associated with her music and public persona.

Her music remains part of her public profile. In April 2024, she released a single titled “Nabbi Omukazi,” listed as a gospel recording by Maggie Kayima.

Her career has therefore traversed several worlds — gospel music, church ministry, television and public controversy — while her personal story has often unfolded under intense public attention.

‘I stayed’

Perhaps the most revealing part of Kayima’s account is not the test results but her decision to remain with a partner after discovering his HIV status.

She says she could have left.

She did not.

She describes the man’s fear that she might abandon him after learning that he was HIV-positive, but says their relationship continued.

Eventually, he died after living with the illness he had disclosed to her.

Yet the words he spoke after her first negative test remained with her.

Years later, she says those words still resonate.

Faith and science in the same story

Kayima’s testimony is ultimately a story about the way people make sense of extraordinary personal experiences.

Science provides an explanation for HIV transmission, risk and discordant relationships.

Faith provides Kayima with a different language for understanding her survival.

She does not reject medicine. In fact, her story repeatedly returns to medical testing — at Mengo Hospital, at JCRC, in South Africa, at Kigo Prison and, most recently, in the United States.

But beyond the laboratory results, she sees a spiritual meaning.

She says she believes God has carried her through love, fear, illness around her, imprisonment, rumours and loss.

And she describes that experience as an anointing over her life.

‘God has the final word’

Today, Kayima says she does not feel compelled to explain every detail of her journey.

She simply looks at the repeated negative results and the difficult chapters she has survived and arrives at one conclusion.

Her latest HIV-negative result has therefore become more than another line on a laboratory report.

It has become, in her eyes, another reminder of a promise she believes was spoken to her years ago.

As she drove away from her doctor’s appointment in America, she says her response was simple:

“Thank You, God. You have been there all along.”

For a woman whose life has repeatedly unfolded at the intersection of faith, fame, love, controversy and adversity, the latest chapter leaves her with a question she may never fully answer — but a conviction she says she no longer doubts.

She survived.

And for Nabbi Omukazi, that survival is itself the testimony.

Editor’s Note

Kayima’s account is presented as her personal testimony. Claims concerning HIV status, medical history and the identity or cause of death of other individuals have not been presented as established facts unless supported by independent reporting. Readers are encouraged to rely on qualified health professionals and recognised HIV-testing services for medical guidance.