The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, who is also the Lira City Woman MP, has described Cecilia Ogwal as a mentor and mother, who put health-related issues at the forefront as an MP.

“Honourable Cecilia Ogwal was a mother to me. I called her mummy, she called me daughter. And I called her husband, papa because she mentored me in all ways. And we had our moments when we would sit and talk as mother and daughter,” she said. 

Ogwal succumbed to cancer in India on Thursday. She was 77.

“Of course, I am going to miss her as a mother and mentor but also as a very strong ally and an advocate for health. Many of you will recall that while in Parliament, she stood tall and spoke very strongly on issues concerning health and she advocated for infrastructure right from the women's hospital that we now have,” Aceng said.

“She has been a very strong advocate for ensuring that these facilities are available for the population of Uganda. And one of her last very strong advocacies was on the issue of having a pet scan in the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) even before she was flown to India,” she added.

A pet scan (positron emission tomography) is an imaging test that uses radioactive material to diagnose a variety of diseases, especially tumours, heart complications, and brain disorders, among others.

“She kept on insisting that a pet scan must be put up this year. And I do hope it will come to pass, so we will miss her. We will miss her as a great ally for the health sector. I will also miss her as a mother and mentor,” Aceng said. 

“And the people of Lango will miss a great advocate for women empowerment for the girl child and her strong fight against poverty,” she added.

I looked up to Ogwal, says Matembe 

At the same vigil, former ethics and integrity minister, Dr Miria Matembe said Ogwal is one of the politicians who fulfilled Uganda’s motto—For God and My Country. 

“It is with great shock and terrible pain that I heard the announcement of Mama Cecilia Ogwal’s death.

It was completely unexpected. It is very painful and heartbreaking, taking into account our nation and the way it is and the way it is going,” she said. 

“Mama Cecilia Ogwal and all that she was doing was within our national anthem working for God and our country,” she added.

Matembe said the country is lacking leaders that live a Christ-like life. 

“Materialism has taken over everybody’s hearts. Mama Cecilia in her position of leadership, I think in my opinion, she led a Christ-like lifestyle of leadership. And so, to me, although I have this terrible pain in my heart for missing her out, as my mother, my mentor and somebody to look up to, it is sad that she passed on quickly after the demise of Mama Joyce Mpanga,” she said.

“You can imagine me as a woman struggling for women’s rights, you know at the forefront of gender equality and women’s empowerment, when I see my elders, the people on whose shoulders I stood going away and yet the new people following us seem to have lost direction, I say God save us,” she added. 

Although at the time they met, Matembe was a die-hard supporter of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), she said Ogwal welcomed her into the battle for women's rights.

“I met Mama Cecilia Ogwal when I was a die-hard NRM and she was a UPC die-hard. What is interesting, is that when I was in Mbarara people were campaigning and telling them, you people, you have to send Matembe to the Constituent Assembly (CA) because she is the one who can confront and face Cecilia Ogwal because they knew Cecilia Ogwal was a mighty warrior,” she said.