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Oulanyah died without a Will - family sources
The late Jacob Oulanyah. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- The late reportedly confided in Dr Opiyo Oloya about his last wishes on how his estate is to be managed.
- Shs45m: Estimated amount of money that the late Oulanyah instructed should be returned to Ms Patricia Lakidi, the woman whom he travelled with to Seattle, US.
Despite a recent Will being attributed to the late Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah, stating which property should be given to who, sources close to the family have refuted it claiming he died without writing one.
According to the sources, the deceased intimated to his close friend, Dr Opiyo Oloya, on his death bed on how he wants his estate managed as he jotted down in a note book.
“Oulanyah didn’t leave a written Will though he was a lawyer. It is un-African to make a Will when one is very fine; the reason why he didn’t have any at the time of his death,” the sources said last week.
“However, when the doctors in Seattle notified him that he has barely a month to live, he confided in Dr Opiyo Oloya when he had come from Canada to check on him and he scribbled down in his note book what his wishes were in case he passed on,” they added.
Said wishes
Some of the information that Oulanyah allegedly told Dr Oloya included his Muyega house to be owned by children of his late wife, while the houses in Kololo and Naguru would be owned by his other children.
Regarding Ms Patricia Lakidi, the woman whom he travelled with to Seattle, sources said Oulanyah informed Dr Oloya of how he had borrowed 10,000 pounds (about Shs45m), which he said should be paid back to her.
“Besides wishing that the 10,000 pounds be paid back to Patricia by his family, he never gave her any property,” the sources said.
When contacted last week, Dr Oloya declined to divulge the details.
“Whatever Jacob told me is between me and him. That is what I can say,” Dr Oloya said by a WhatsApp call.
Efforts to reach Mr Andrew Ojok, the son of the deceased, and Mr Nathan Okori, the father, on whether Oulanyah left a Will or not, were futile as they didn’t pick our repeated phone calls or return them by press time.
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However, last week, Mr Ojok when asked about the management of the estate of his father, said: “The family has sat and will continue sitting, but I can’t divulge those details.”
During the burial of Oulanyah on April 8, his father, Mr Okori claimed some unscrupulous people were scheming to grab his late son’s properties.
Mr Okori tasked Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo and Democratic Party president Norbert Mao to ensure that the property is intact.
A Will is a document which provides how property will be distributed after death and must meet some formal requirements as provided by the laws.
ALSO READ: Oulanyah’s death and the tragedy of Uganda
When asked whether the alleged wishes of the late Speaker to Dr Oloya can hold water legally, the sources said they can only be treated as Oulanyah’s dying declarations to guide the family on how to go about sharing the property.
Mr Ronald Sekagya, a registrar with Judicial Service Commission, said a person making a Will must be in his/her sound mind, not under duress while making it, must be dated and should be the most recent one with the word “last Will”.
“The Will must also indicate which property is for the deceased, how many children, if any. There must be no lies in a Will. And if you are not giving property to any child, you must explain to why,” he said.
Mr Sekagya also added that when someone dies without a Will, then the wife or husband depending on the case, applies to get letters of administration to start administering the estate.
About when the administrator general should come in, Mr Sekagya said that is when there is appointed administrator to oversee the estate of the deceased.
What law states
Distribution on the death of a male intestate (without leaving a Will) according to the Succession Act, is as follows;
(a) Where the intestate is survived by a customary heir, a wife, a lineal descendant and a dependent relative—
(i) The customary heir shall receive 1 percent;
(ii) The wives shall receive 15 percent;
(iii) The dependent relative shall receive 9 percent;
(iv) The lineal descendants shall receive 75 percent of the whole of the property of the intestate, but where the intestate leaves no person surviving him capable of taking a proportion of his property under paragraph (a) (ii) or (iii) of this paragraph, that proportion shall go to the lineal descendants.
Explanation
“It is un-African to make a Will when one is very fine; the reason why he didn’t have any at the time of his death. However, when the doctors in Seattle notified him (Oulanyah) that he has barely a month to live, he confided in Dr Opiyo Oloya when he had come from Canada to check on him and he scribbled down in his note book what his wishes were in case he passed on,” Sources
