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Kasango to be buried today after court decides burial site, sets conditions
Bob Kasango’s body is wheeled out of church after service at All Saints Church in Nakasero in Kampala March 2. PHOTO/RACHEL MABALA.
What you need to know:
- Kasango died on February 27 at Luzira prison due to heart-related complications. He was serving a 16-year sentence.
Exactly a month after prominent lawyer Robert Aldridge Kasango, alias Bob, died, his remains are to be buried today at Gweri Village in Fort Portal, Kabarole District.
This follows a court decision on Friday evening that Kasango’s remains be buried in Fort Portal and not in Tororo District within a period of four days from the day of the ruling.
A family friend from Fort Portal, confirmed yesterday to this publication about today’s burial.
Kasango’s remains had initially been scheduled for burial on March 5, but a standoff ensued between his wife, Ms Nice Bitarabeho Kasango, and Kasango’s mother, Ms Rosie Kabise on where he should be buried.
The widow had wanted to have her husband buried at their family land in Gweri Village in Fort Portal, whereas Ms Kabise had wanted her son buried at her matrimonial home in Tororo.
The standoff climaxed with the Tororo side forcefully grabbing the casket containing Kasango’s remains after the funeral service at All Saints Cathedral in Nakasero, Kampala on March 3, and attempting to speed off to Tororo.
The group was only intercepted by police in Namugongo, a Kampala suburb, en route to Tororo for burial.
The body had since been kept at A-Plus funeral management offices, with the funeral home charging a daily fee of Shs250,000.
Justice Mugambe, in her 15-page ruling, said it was the court’s finding that Kasango’s father was a Musoga, a one Richard Livingstone Kasimo, who migrated to Bulemezi in Buganda and was buried there and not a Japadhola, the late Bonventure Okumu, before questioning the motive of Kasango’s mother to bury her son in Tororo which is not Kasango’s patriarchal burial grounds.
“If the deceased’s mother is believed, in the patriarchal context of culture, then the deceased (Kasango) should be buried in Busoga or Bulemezi where his patriarchal ancestors originated or migrated to and were buried,” the judge ruled.
Further in her ruling, Justice Mugambe held that it was her finding that Kasango did not have attachments to Tororo side.
The judge also said Kasango’s three children and widow had never been to Tororo and that the eldest son, Mr Samora Kasango, had expressed his desire to have his father buried in Fort Portal.
The judge also ordered that Kasango’s burial must be conducted decently, giving the immediate family an opportunity to send him off amid police protection.
The judge also ordered that the Tororo team led by Kasango’s mother should be allowed to attend burial if they so wish.
Shortly after the court ruling, the Tororo relatives expressed their dissatisfaction and vowed not to attend Kasango’s burial in Fort Portal because it was against their wish.
They also vowed that even if it takes 100 years, Kasango’s widow will bring their “son’s bones” for descent burial in Tororo, before warning that it might be too late for her since “they might not be there”.
“They will bring back the bones, I am telling you. He (Kasango) is a Japadhola,” an agitated Kasango’s mother vowed shortly after the court ruling.
The Tororo group also vowed not to step in Fort Portal to bury Kasango before revealing that they will perform parallel burial rituals as a way of sending off Kasango.
“Let her (widow) take the body, we shall not go for burial but we shall do our own burial ceremony without a body,” one of Kasango’s sisters only identified as Immaculate, shouted shortly after the court ruling.
To avoid further acrimony, Justice Mugambe ordered that each party bears its own legal costs.
