Grief engulfed Entebbe International Airport Cargo area on Wednesday as close family and friends received the body of the late Rhoda Nakibuuka Nsibirwa Kalema who was popularly known as the “Mother of Parliament”.
Kalema passed away over the weekend at the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi aged 96 and on Tuesday President Yoweri Museveni granted the deceased an official burial.
Mr David Nsubuga, an in law to the late while addressing media revealed that the deceased’s body will spend Wednesday night at the A plus funeral service home.
“Tomorrow, we have a service at Namirembe Cathedral, beginning at nine o’clock after the service, the body will be transported to her home in Muyenga where we shall have a vigil. We plan to have a church service in the evening, starting at 6pm presided over by the clergy of St Steven Kisugu” he noted.
He added, “And overnight, of course, we shall be celebrating and receiving tributes from different people, our former friends and different categories of people, who will be given an opportunity to say a word or two about her contribution to this nation”.
Mr Nsubuga said on Friday, the body will proceed to Kiboga at 8am where it will spend the night followed by a church service on Saturday morning beginning at 10 am before burial at 2pm.
“We have missed her, she’s one of the persons that, at her age, was well documented, she had special attributes. She loved us, some of us who are in-laws, but she treated us like her personal children. She was always joking with us, and I remember even when she was in Nsambya Hospital” he said.
Mr Nsubuga added, “She was telling me, you know, because my wife and her were almost like co-wives, she was making a joke that she’s sure my wife is not part of her problem, why she’s fallen sick, and she had a lot of hope that she will come back, but it’s unfortunate that she has not made it, but we want to thank her for the contribution she has made to this nation, the wise counsel she has offered to everybody who has approached her, and May Her Soul Rest In Peace”.
