Former ICT minister and presidential candidate Aggrey Awori will be buried in a grave he built for himself 10 years ago.
Awori succumbed to Covid-19 at TMR International hospital in Naalya on Monday this week. He will be laid to rest at his country home in Kibimba village, Buwuni town council in Bugiri district tomorrow Saturday.
According to Awori's sister Constance Taaka, said Awori dug his own grave to prepare for his death about ten years ago. Taaka says that Awori preferred his body to be buried in a very quiet place.
Taaka says the deceased often told his relatives and friends that he had constructed his burial site so as to reduce the financial burden on his family and mourners.
"Our brother was a very open-minded person and he often told us, including some of his neighbours, how he had constructed his own grave, as a way of reducing on the financial burden that, would be incurred by mourners during the preparation of his last funeral rites," said Taaka.
On Thursday, dozens of mourners thronged his home and gathered at the grave to pay their last respects. Justus Oketch, a neighbour says that they had no option but to gather at the grave since burial ceremonies have been restricted to not more than 20 people as one of the measures to control the spread of Covid-19.
Oketch says that Awori was a senior elder within their community and they respected his decision of constructing a grave before his death.
"Although it sounded strange at first because most of us had never heard of someone constructing their own grave before death, we respected his decision over the years," he says.
Awori represented Samia-Bugwe North, Busia district in parliament from 2001 until 2006. He was an outspoken opposition MP from the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) political party. In 2007, he abandoned UPC and joined the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
In 2019, Awori was appointed minister for Information & Communications Technology until 2011 when he was dropped in the cabinet reshuffle. He also contested in the 2011 presidential elections.
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