Bishop Ojwang’s burial programme released

Bishop Benjamin Ojwang’s remains will now be buried at All Saints Cathedral in Kitgum Town after some of his clan members had initially opposed the idea.
The concerns came in the wake of an intense and long meeting convened in Pader Town on Thursday evening where the Church and the bereaved family managed to convince the bitter section of the clan who had insisted the bishop’s body be buried in his ancestral home in Pader instead.

Sources who attended the crisis meeting intimated to Saturday Monitor that the kinsmen complained it was inconceivable to them that Bishop Ojwang should be buried in Kitgum where some Christians bitterly fought him during most of his 12-years tenure from 2002.
“There were tensions because some people had refused. That the bishop should be buried here (Pader District) and not taken to Kitgum on account of the previous concerns there. But eventually, it was accepted after a long meeting,” a source who attended the meeting told Daily Monitor in a phone interview.

The heated meeting, that lasted several hours, was reportedly chaired by Mr Peter Odok wod Ocheng, the former district chairman for Pader and Agago districts. The current Bishop, the Rt Rev Wilson Kitara also drove from Kitgum Town to attend it.
“Some part of the clan [members] had objections that the bishop cannot be buried here in Kitgum. We had to convince them and we have resolved it now,” Bishop Kitara, said on phone, shortly after returning to Kitgum Town from Pader Wednesday evening well after 8pm.
It is a Church tradition to burry its prominent clergies and lay Christians in church cemeteries or compounds. All Saints Cathedral, situated at the diocesan headquarters in Mican on the outskirts of Kitgum Town, has a cemetery where such individuals have been laid to rest in the past.

Bishop Ojwang breathed his last on Monday at Kiruddu General Hospital where he was earlier admitted with high blood pressure and diabetes. He hailed from Pader, which together with Kitgum, Lamwo and Agago are East Acholi districts that comprise the Diocese of Kitgum.
The fight between the bishop and Concerned Christians, a loose pressure group, backed by the Church of the Province of Uganda on the other, did not only pit their supporters against each other but also dented inter-district relations, with Pader especially feeling “their own” was being unfairly targeted.

The fight also took a political twist as most Concerned Christians leaders who are Uganda People’s Congress party members viewed and indeed called the late bishop “an NRM (National Resistance Movement) cadre.”
Other sources added that the meeting at last resolved that ‘even though there were tensions and fights against Bishop Ojwang while he served in Kitgum, the problem was between a few individuals and not the entire church.
“And that he had already asked for forgiveness and had forgiven those who fought him, and so there should be forgiveness [from his clans people as well] so that his remains are buried in Kitgum,” another source added.

Daily Monitor has also learnt that at the height of the fights, Bishop Ojwang wrote a Will that he should be buried at Pader Kilak Church but that he rescinded that position during the handover of the bishop’s crosier to Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali in December 2017.
“He forgave everybody. From that day he changed his will and said he should be buried at All Saints Cathedral where he worked,” said a source.

His son, only identified as Mr Bukenya, reportedly phone-called the meeting and confirmed his father’s final Will.
“He was not physically present at the meeting but he called and was put on loud [phone speaker] and urged them to respect his father’s final wish and what they as the family had resolved,” a source said.
The Pader District speaker, Mr Justine Ocen, said the council session is likely to focus on two key issues regarding the late Bishop Benjamin Ojwang.

“We know what he did especially in the spiritual world [and] then his struggle for peace with other religious leaders,” Mr Ocen said.
Bishop Ojwang, together with other members of Acholi Religious Leaders Forum – an inter-faith association of various religious denominations in Acholiland, also actively participated in the Juba Peace processes aimed at ending the Lord’s Resistance Army rebellion in northern Uganda and restoring peace in the region.

Bishop Ojwang himself suffered the wrath of the brutal LRA rebels when they stormed the bishop’s residence at Mican one night in May 2014, harassed and abducted him plus 11 other people in and around the diocesan base. The bishop, however, escaped unhurt after Uganda People’s Defence Forces soldiers pursued and fought off the rebels. Bishop Ojwang had spent four hours in rebel captivity. The rebels also looted household property and nine goats belonging to him.
Immediately after the council session, selected bishops and priests are to conduct a funeral service between 10am and 1pm in Pader Town. Then the body will be taken on its final journey to Kitgum at All Saints Cathedral for a night vigil with burial set for Wednesday next week.

The programme
According to the funeral programme signed by Bishop Kitara, the prelate will be buried on Wednesday, November 20, at All Saint’s Cathedral cemetery in Mican, Pager Division in Kitgum Municipal Council. The burial service begins at 10am and ends at 1pm, the programme note states.
Prior to the burial, the body will on Monday, November 18, be taken to All Saint’s Cathedral [Nakareso in] Kampala at 8:30am and service will be conducted up to 10am, read a part of the programme note.

The body is to leave Kampala for Gulu the same day and is expected to be at Christ Church in Gulu Town at 2 pm. Thereafter, the body is to leave Gulu for Pader by 4pm and reach by 7pm at his home in Oyutu Village in Pader Town Council, where the remains will spend a night.
On Tuesday, November 19, at 8:30am, a proposed joined council meeting by the four districts under the diocese: Kitgum, Pader, Lamwo and Agago to honour Bishop Ojwang would kick-off.

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