Details About Uganda’s Win In East Africa’s Got Talent

East Africa’s Got Talent also abbreviated as EAGT, is a talent show competition that is part of the Got Talent franchise owned by Simon Cowell. East Africa’s Got Talent is a broadcast that features only four countries; Kenya Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. All these are prominent Africa safari destinations. Uganda is famous for gorilla trek safaris Uganda/gorilla tours in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park & Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, wildlife safaris Uganda in Murchison Falls National Park, Kidepo Valley National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, among others. With over 1072 bird species, Uganda is also an eminent destination for Uganda bird-watching safaris.

Rwanda, famous as the land of a thousand hills has several interesting activities for travellers like Rwanda gorilla tours, Rwanda wildlife safaris, Rwanda birding safaris, Rwanda chimpanzee trekking safaris, Kigali city tours among the many.
Kenya safaris and Tanzania safaris are famous for the best Africa wildlife safaris because of their wildebeest migration in Serengeti National Park and Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve. They too have other prominent destinations like Lake Manyara National Park, Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro crater, Nairobi National Park, Arusha National Park and many more.
The programme showcases a variety of talents from people of all ages from East Africa, with acts ranging from singing, dancing, comedy, magic, juggling, stunts and other various genres. Each participant who auditions is hoping to secure a place in the live television finale by impressing a panel of judges and the viewers at home. The pre-auditions were held in major cities in each country which included Nairobi, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Kigali.
This season one was produced by South African film production company Rapid Blue. The first episode premiered on August 4, 2019, and seven-year-old Leynah Kagere from Uganda received the show’s first golden buzzer.

Judges

East Africa’s Got Talent Season 1 judges were unveiled on the 13th July 2019. Each country had a judge representative; Jeff Koinange for Kenya- He is a Kenyan TV show host at Citizen Tv, the Uganda judge was Gaetano Kagwa; a presenter at 91.3 Capital Fm Uganda, Tanzania was represented by a Tanzanian singer-songwriter Vanessa Mdee and DJ Contact Makeda from Rwanda.

Finals

The final episode operates using the same format as the semifinals, though this time the winner is determined purely by a public vote, with the finalists attempting to secure more votes than the others by performing a new routine at their best.
The host announces the results with the act gaining more public votes declared the winner. The winner receives a grand prize of 50 000 dollars.
Just moments after Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei won the 10,000m gold medal in Doha, Qatar on Sunday evening, the Mutesasira siblings; 11-year-old Ezekiel Mutesasira and his 14-year-old sister Esther Mutesasira won themselves $50,000 (Shs 184 million) in Nairobi Kenya at East Africa’s Got Talent (EAGT) finale. Uganda’s brother and sister Esther & Ezekiel Mutesasira were announced winners of the first season by public vote on 6th October 2019 beating Rwanda’s Intayoberana which came in second place^. Esther and Ezekiel’s rendition of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey’s ‘when you believe’, won over judges.

The Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni sent his congratulation to the duo in a tweet soon after they were announced winners.
“My grandchildren have told me about our talented bazukulu Esther and Ezekiel, who has won an East African Talent competition this evening. I am told they are very good singers. I congratulate them.” — Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) October 6, 2019.
The talented Mutesasira siblings are children to Pastor Stephen Mutesasira and wife Julie Mutesasira, who, herself ruled Uganda’s gospel music scene for some years from 2005. Uganda, which had three of the six finalists, was simply too good for the rest of the acts from Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania from start to finish. Even with Ugandans’ non-voting culture for our own, the rest of East Africa recognized true talent and deservedly voted the Mutesasira siblings as the inaugural winners of East Africa’s Got Talent show. When all the four judges; Vanessa Mdee, Jeff Koinange and Gaetano Kagwa, Makeda Mahadeo gave the sensational siblings a standing ovation, you almost realized destiny was beckoning for the duo.
The other finalists were Comedic Dance Group (Uganda), Dance Alliance Network (Uganda), Jehovah Shalom Acapella (Uganda), Janella Tamara (Kenya), Spellcast (Kenya) and Inteyoberana cultural troupe (Rwanda).