Retired Anglican Bishop Benoni Ogwal Dead at 83

Rev. Benoni Ogwal Abwang, the former Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese, has died aged 83. Bishop Ogwal breathed his last on Sunday morning from St Mary’s Hospital Lacor in Gulu, where he had been admitted in critical condition for the past week.

Rev Canon Willy Akena, the Caretaker Principal of St Janani Luwum Vocational Institute, told Uganda Radio Network that Bishop Ogwal was in a coma at the Intensive Care Unit when he passed on. Canon Akena says he visited the former prelate on his hospital bed on Sunday morning and held prayers with him and the family hours before he was announced dead.

//Cue in: “It was yesterday…

Cue out:…in that condition.”//

According to Akena, the doctors revealed that Bishop Ogwal suffered multiple organ failures among them kidney which caused his death.

//Cue in: “The Doctor was…

Cue out:…not now easy.”//

Akena described Bishop Ogwal as a very jolly person who loved to laugh, visit people, and was, above all, very friendly. He said the Northern Uganda diocese will greatly miss a man with wisdom, adding that he was he was also instrumental in establishing the Women Development Center at the Diocese, which later transformed to St Janani Luwum Vocation Institute.

Akena noted that a building at the institute will be built in his memory. Rt Rev Nelson Onono-Onweng, the Northern Uganda Diocese Bishop emeritus, who succeeded Bishop Ogwal remembers the deceased as the one who ordained him as a deacon and a priest in 1975 and 1977, respectively.

Bishop Onono-onweng said he only worked with Bishop Ogwal for a year before he fled into exile, fearing for his life during the reign of former President Idi Amin. He said the death of Bishop Ogwal is painful not only to him but his children and faithful in the diocese of Northern Uganda.

“It's painful to lose a senior clergy like that in our time. We need people like him. For example, if you want to talk about Archbishop Luwum, the trouble he went through, and his death. He has a very good story because he was there, but now he is gone,” said Bishop Onono-Onweng.

He added that it's also painful that Bishop Ogwal, who had intended to settle in Uganda, didn’t enjoy his return from exile for long, adding that his children will now be total orphans. “He was the only parent left with the children because his wife died, now he is gone, and the children have been left total orphans. Even if they are grown, they have no parents now. Besides that, he comes back sometimes and stays in Gulu, but before he settles long, he is gone,” he said.

Bishop Ogwal was born in 1942 and served as Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese from 1974 to 1989. He took over the mantle from former Archbishop of Uganda St Janani Luwum, who was the then Northern Uganda Diocese Bishop from 1969 to 1974. Bishop Ogwal fled Uganda in 1977 after the brutal killing of St Janani Luwum. He returned in 1979 along with other exiled Anglican clerics, but again fled the country in the 1980s.  

Bishop Ogwal first made a return in 2009 during the consecration of Northern Uganda Diocese Bishop Emeritus Johnson Gakumba, and later in 2018 when he brought the body of his late wife, Dr Alice Nyadoi Okoth Ogwal, from United States of America for burial in Uganda. He would later settle in Gulu but often moved outside the country until his demise.