The burial of the former government Bank of Uganda, Gideon Nkojo has been set for next month.
Nkojo died in November 2020 in Virginia, USA after being ill. Family members immediately started arranging for the return of the body back home to its resting place in Mirongo Village, Hakibale Sub County in Kabarole district, in vain.
The body was supposed to have been returned on Tuesday, January 25, but it was postponed.
In a programme released by the family on Saturday, Nkojo’s body will arrive in the country on Sunday, Feb 27. A funeral service will be held at All Saints Cathedral on Monday, Feb 28.
According to the programme, the body will thereafter be transported to his home in Mirongo, Kijura Kabarole District for burial which will be held on March 1.
Since 2020, there have been conflicting reports on why Nkojo’s body has never been returned. Some say it was a money issue, while others say it’s a fallout among family members.
An insider in the family says that the World Bank was more than willing to meet the expenses of returning the body, but the deceased’s wife refused. The insider also said that the wife did not want Nkojo’s relatives in the United States to come near him when he was sick, and after he died.
However, a cousin to Nkojo who lives in Fort Portal, who preferred anonymity says that the body was not returned due to the covid-19 restrictions. He adds that they are preparing for his burial, although then he was hesitant to reveal when it will take place.
Nkojo served as Central Bank Governor from May 1979 to September 1980, replacing Charles Nyonyintono Kikonyogo’s first brief stint at the helm of the bank. He had been working with the World Bank in Washington DC, USA.
When Yusuf Lule assumed the presidency, he appointed Nkojo Governor, whose service continued into Godfrey Binaisa’s Reign in the 1980s’. According to sources at the time, in April 1979, ministers who included Ephraim Kamuntu for Commerce, Akena p’Ojok (Power), and Anthony Ocaya (Planning) recommended to President Lule to appoint Prof. Mathew Okai as governor.
The President instead chose Nkojo, who took on the task of building the confidence of the international community in the Ugandan economy after eight turbulent years.
It is reported that during that time, a senior politician in Binaisa’s government asked Nkojo to avail the politician with a big amount of money from the bank, promising him a share. He declined the request. The politician kept asking him to take action, and Nkojo decided to resign and relocate to the US.
In 2016, the Bank of Uganda was celebrating 50 years of existence and paid tribute to all living and late former governors, however, they could not trace Nkojo whose life was deteriorating in the United States.
A bank official who declined to be named dismissed this report as untrue but admitted that at that moment they could not account for him.
Nkojo was the son of the late Yosiya Nkojo, the former Prime Minister Tooro Kingdom.
–URN
