Africa-Press – Uganda. In the bushy hamlet of Kyabakadde, 31 kilometres north-east of Kampala, an eerie silence welcomes visitors.
Dirges and gospel songs blare on two gigantic speakers, installed a metre-high and facing one another, in the quadrangle, partially circumscribed by three houses.
Men and women clustered in small groups, some with hands clasped across the chests, could be spotted discussing in subdued voices.
Some were seated. Many stood erect, casting glances over security personnel deployed both inside and outside the residence.
There was no wailing. But a close-up look showed tears welling in the eyes of many mourners, betraying a superficial courage.
In the midst of an afternoon shower, people continued to throng the forested place littered with mushrooming residential houses. So too sounded the foot-works as volunteers served meals to mourners.
Welcome to the ancestral home of Kampala Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga in Kyabakadde village in Kyampisi sub-county in Mukono District.
To millions, the prelate, who passed on suddenly on Friday night, was a spiritual leader, a man of God. A shepherd.
To siblings, however, Lwanga, 68, was just a God-loving human and family patriarch. He wined and dined with them every festive season, especially on Boxing Days and Easter Mondays.
The family was expecting a similar re-union yesterday, which they did not only have but will no longer hold – with Lwanga gone forever.
Whenever he was present at home, the Archbishop gathered neighbours or they just showed up for conversation, feast or catching up with a man they knew as their own.
Lwanga did not disappoint. From directly helping the needy and instituting development projects, among them St Cyprian High School Kyabakadde and bankrolling local savings groups, the reach of the primate’s generosity was limitless.
And beneficiaries reciprocated with reverence and appreciation of his largesse.Eulogised as a man of ideas, Lwanga spread a gospel of Jesus alongside carrying out development projects because he believed in the improvement of the physical welfare of mankind.
To him, having money was not sin. And he worked for it and often told Christians to do so in a proper, not dubious, manner.
Mourners at Lwanga’s ancestral home in Kyabakadde yesterday. PHOTO/ISMAIL KEZAALA
Without the robes and the collar, Lwanga divested himself of high-profile status and bureaucracy and turned into a chatty, humorous and loving man who moved around and mingled with the villagers, according to his follower Justin Mayanja.
The Archbishop would stop, greet and hold long conversations with village-mates, especially the elderly, and the talks were often punctuated with roaring hearty laughter.He was a revered cleric steeped in Buganda culture and had unapologetic affection for the kingdom and its customs.
The second born in a family of 14 picked the religious cue from his late father Joseph Wamala Nsubuga, who was a Catechist, and mother Matilda Nakonde, a devout Catholic.
“From his childhood he loved priests and their way of life. He also told us that he wanted to continue from where our father stopped with [catechist] duties. Besides, our father had spotted him as someone who loved priesthood and kept on guiding him on how to go about it. We are happy that he has died a religious man who served God with one heart” said Mr Mayanja, a follower of Lwanga.
A mourner looks at a calendar bearing pictures of Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, Pope Francis and other church leaders at the archbishop’s ancestral home in Kyabakadde in Mukono District. PHOTOS/ISMAIL KEZAALA
Lwanga’s sudden departure consumes his siblings in sorrow in a unique way as it brings to seven, or half of the family members, that have transitioned to the next world.Mr Mayanja, a businessman, said they would have loved to inter the remains of Lwanga, who was the family heir, at the ancestral burial place so that he would rest alongside their parents and six siblings.
However, they have no objection to the decision by Kampala Archdiocese to bury him inside Rubaga Cathedral, which was his seat of administration.
“Lwanga loved God and we cannot go against the church … we thank the Church for allowing him to grow to its senior ranks,” Mr Mayanja said of his influential brother whom he said died without a will.
Although Lwanga publicly spoke about threats to his life, including being hounded by unknown people in numberless vehicles, he kept his trepidations away from his immediate family. Nevertheless, they prayed for him and his safety whenever they received news about the threats to their brother through the media.
Lwanga, although had investments, never profiteered from them. Instead, he channelled the proceeds mainly into charity.
For instance, all the 1,200 students at his St Cyprian High School Kyabakadde were on half bursary, according to head teacher Joseph Kamya.
“The money from the students [in half tuition] is used to run the school and pay staff only,” he said of the institution ranked among top ten in Mukono District.
It is this trail-blazing journey that schematic heart attack induced by a blood clot suddenly stopped to the consternation and grief of countless people on April 3, 2021.
The family rejected insinuations of foul play and said they believe in death and are confident Lwanga has rested with God symbolically in the week of Jesus’s resurrection.
