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Rukungiri man dies aged 118
RIP. Petero Kaganda who died of prostate complication at his home in Katarumwa Village, Ruhinda Sub-county, Rukungiri District, last Friday . PHOTO BY PEREZ RUMANZI
What you need to know:
- One of the deceased’s granddaughters, Canon Miriyeri Ruhija, who is the deputy head teacher of Kinyasano Girls High School, commended their neighbours for looking after Kaganda in his poor health.
- Kaganda is survived by a widow, five children, 92 grandchildren, 215 great grandchildren and 78 great-great grandchildren.
Rukungiri. Hundreds of mourners on Sunday afternoon thronged Katarumwa Village in Ruhinda Sub-county, Rukungiri District, to pay their last respects to a man believed to be one of the oldest in the country, who died aged 118.
Petero Kaganda died of prostate complication at his home on Friday morning. He had been battling the problem for 34 years.
According to a poll tax ticket, which is among many documents he possessed, Kaganda paid his first tax in 1917 when he was 16 years old.
The same ticket indicates his date of birth as February 1902. He was named Kaganda following the signing of the Buganda Agreement that brought Baganda chiefs to serve in Kigezi Sub-region in 1902. The Baganda chiefs were forerunners to the colonialists in Rujumbura.
“At the time he died, he was still strong, could read the Bible and tell interesting stories of the past. The previous week, he had walked to church, about a kilometre away from his home for prayers,” the village chairperson, Mr Christopher Turyatemba, told Daily Monitor at the burial.
“He gave me his documents, including tax tickets, with the first one being of 1917. All the children he had with the first wife whom he married in 1931 have since passed on. There are only two for the second one he married in 1960s and three for the one he married in 1973,” Mr Turyatemba added.
Kaganda’s nephew, Mr Eric Mbarebantyo, 85, said the deceased was the strongest man he had ever seen.
Ndere Parish councillor Kenneth Tugumisirize Rwabushaija said they are worried by a rising number of elders who die before documenting their past as the current generation will not be able to know their ancestral history.
One of the deceased’s granddaughters, Canon Miriyeri Ruhija, who is the deputy head teacher of Kinyasano Girls High School, commended their neighbours for looking after Kaganda in his poor health.
Kaganda is survived by a widow, five children, 92 grandchildren, 215 great grandchildren and 78 great-great grandchildren.
