A son of slain Ugandan Minister for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations, Col (rtd) Charles Okello Engola has appealed to the public to allow government agencies conclude investigations into his father’s shooting death instead of indulging in speculation.
Addressing journalists yesterday, Mr George Olong said as a family, they have been hurt by one rumour going around that the soldier who gunned down his father did so because of mistreatment by the late minister.
Mr Olong said all bodyguards who had ever been assigned to guard their father were always treated as family members.
“When you come to the village for burial, we shall show you a bodyguard who has spent 15 years with us. I am here as proof that I shared the same table for breakfast with my father, the soldier who killed my father and the personal assistant that he shot at. How do you turn around and say they were mistreating you,” Mr Olong said.
He explained that the family’s relationship with the guards is so good that sometimes people cannot differentiate them from actual family members.
Asked when was the last time he had breakfast with the guards and his father, Mr Olong said this was recently when he was scheduled to undergo surgery as part of treatment for a cancer.
He told journalists that he visited his father over breakfast to break the unhappy news that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and also to inform him of the impending surgery.
Mr Olong separately explained the unusually long time between Tuesday’s tragic events and May 13, when the colonel will be laid to rest. He said after the government took over funeral arrangements, the family also thought it nice to give themselves time to plan for a decent burial for their father.
According to a tentative programme, on Tuesday, May 9, the body will be taken to Parliament for public viewing and for colleagues to pay their last respects. The next day, the cortege will be assembled at Kololo Independence Grounds where an official funeral service will be held.
The body will later be taken to his home in Kyanja for an overnight vigil before being flown to Oyam District on Thursday where there will be a special council sitting held in Col Engola’s honour.
On Friday, May 12, there will be a church service at Awangi Church of Uganda starting at 10 a.m. and burial takes place the next day at the ancestral home in Awangi, Iceme Sub-county.
