Kazibwe’s family blocks Speciosa from burial

Relatives of the late Eng Charles Kazibwe view his body in Kayebe Village, Gayaza in Wakiso District yesterday. The former VP Speciosa Wandira’s ex-husband will be laid to rest today. PHOTO BY Abubaker Lubowa.

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Trespassing? The family of the late engineer claim that the former Vice President has no cultural right to step foot at the in-laws’ home.

Kampala

The family of the late Eng Charles Kazibwe yesterday announced that it had barred his former wife and ex-Vice President, Speciosa Wandira, from all the burial programmes and the home.

To enable this, the family has categorised the mourners into two groups; family, friends and immediate relatives at the burial home and another for Dr Wandira’s mourners, who will sit about 150 metres away.

In what seemed like cracking fireworks, family members told journalists yesterday that the decision to “ring-fence” Dr Wandira and her group was reached unanimously by a burial committee set up on Tuesday night to work out the differences arising.

Mr Peter Masagazi Kiyaga, a young brother of the deceased, acknowledged: “The decision was made on traditional grounds, that Dr Wandira cannot turn up at her in-laws’ home.”

Burial arrangements are scheduled today at Kayebe Village, Gayaza, where Eng Kazibwe has been living since their divorce in 2002 on claims of domestic violence. “In this home Charles was born, raised and has been living,….so according to our culture, Speciosa cannot set foot here,” Mr Kiyaga said. However, the deceased’s other wives were not forbidden from turning up at the burial home.

However, the Daily Monitor understands that Dr Wandira, who was recently appointed the UN special envoy on HIV/Aids in Africa, disagreed with the rest of the family members and was allegedly giving rules of procedure that the rest of the family felt a derision. The fallout is also said to stem from an unspecified amount of money from State House to facilitate the burial.

This newspaper could not independent establish how much State House had given the family. In 2011, Dr Wandira and the Kazibwe family nearly fought over the burial of one of the deceased’s twin daughters, who died in mysterious ways.

The ex-vp who had custody over the children since court granted the divorce, buried her daughter at her home in Dundu, Mukono District, against cultural principals, igniting uproar from the paternal side.