Kampala, Uganda
A magistrate’s court in Uganda has slapped criminal charges on a prominent pastor who recently married a second wife under customary law before divorcing his official wife.
Pastor Aloysius Bugingo, of the House of Prayer Ministries in Kampala, faces several counts of charges together with his newly married wife Suzan Makula. Grade I Magistrate Stella Okwong Paculal has ordered Bugingo and Makula to appear in court on 21st January.
Pastor Aloysius Bugingo and his fiancé Suzan Makula during their official visit to her parents on 26th November.
Bugingo and Makula were charged with contracting marriage by customary law when the former was already married contrary to Section 50 of the Marriage Act. Makula was also charged with another count of marrying a person who is already married contrary to Section 42 of the Marriage Act.
Bugingo and Makula were dragged to court by two public litigants Male Mabirizi and Robert Rutaro Muhairwe for engaging in a marriage process when the groom is already married.
Before marrying Makula, Bugingo abandoned his first wife Teddy Naluswa of 29 years in matrimony on grounds that she had a long illness that had prevented him from enjoying his conjugal rights for years.
Rutaro told court last Thursday that Pastor Bugingo and Makula committed a crime in broad daylight, when the pastor, who was known to be married, went through another marriage ceremony with someone else while the first marriage was still subsisting.
Neither Pastor Bugingo nor Makula was present in court. Bugingo’s lawyer Ronald Ruhinda said his client is a law-abiding citizen who will appear in court when required.
Bugingo and Makula’s tribulations started on 7th December when she introduced him to her parents at a colourful ceremony in Kampala. Following Bugingo’s introduction by Makula, his first wife Naluswa insisted that the introduction had not changed her status as the official wife of the former. She said marriage is a permanent union.
Since 2020, Bugingo and Naluswa have battled in court, with the former seeking divorce to clear the path for him to marry Makula. But Naluswa refused to accept the divorce proposal insisting that marriage is permanent prompting Bugingo to denounce the Christian marriage vow.
Bugingo told his followers last year during a church service that the Christian marital vow of “till death do us part” is not Biblical. He instead said it was a creation of the Catholic Church.
“I have not seen a couple in the Bible saying “till death do us part. The marriage vow has confined couples in Satanic traps yet Satan came to kill and destroy,” Bugingo said in January, 2020.
The Anglican Church said the pastor’s claims are unfounded and are a direct attack on their faith, the Roman Catholic Church and the Pentecostals, by associating them with Satan.
Ankole Diocesan Bishop in Western Uganda, Johnson Twinomujuni, said Bugingo’s “yearning soul is in a desperate need for justification over his prejudiced separation with his bona fide wife.”
He added that because Bugingo cannot get the divorce by “virtual of moral objectivity, he is deliberately misinterpreting the Bible, so he can justify his act.”
A group of Born-Again Faith-based Pastors in Uganda under their umbrella the National Fellowship of Born-Again Pentecostal Churches also denounced Pastor Bugingo’s new marriage and other activities on 9th December.
A statement signed by the Association’s General Overseer Bishop Joshua Lwere read: “We hereby denounce and dissociate ourselves from Pastor Bugingo’s practices, outbursts, behavior, and doctrine. We, therefore, do not recognize his ministry until we see repentance and acceptable change.”
