The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Lokoya died at about 2 Am Saturday at his home in Awere Cell in Pece-Laroo Division, Gulu City. He was 99 years old.
Lukoya headed the New Jerusalem International Tabernacle Ministries also known as Meltar, a church that employs both the bible and the Quran during worship and healing services.
Doreen Adokorach, Lukoya’s daughter told Uganda Radio Network Saturday that her father had been bedridden for the past four months after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Adokorach says Lukoya underwent an operation two months ago from St Mary’s Hospital Lacor and had been responding to medication until Friday night when his condition deteriorated.
“Last night he (Lukoya) started experiencing serious chest pain and coughing. It had been ongoing for some time, but he couldn’t make it this morning at 2 Am,” says Adokorach.
According to Adokorach, Lukoya’s body has been taken to the Fourth Infantry Division morgue pending burial arrangements.
She remembers her father as a true servant of God who spent his time spreading the gospel of God to the people of Acholi and the world.
“God was living in him and spoke through him to the people of Acholi so that they change their traditional ways of life and serve God’s purpose. His physical body is dead, but his spirit continues to live,” she said.
Adokorach says she will take over her father’s leadership role in the Ministry which reportedly has more than 10,000 followers within Acholi and other parts of the World.
About Lukoya
Born in 1925, not much is known about Severino Lukoya’s early life. However, it’s reported that Lukoya was a former catechist in the Church of Uganda who later fell out and started preaching on his own after allegedly being possessed by the Holy Spirit in 1948. He had three children at the time, the eldest being Alice Auma Lakwena.
Auma worked as a diviner and healer but turned into a fighter on alleged orders of the Spirit of Lakwena and formed the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) majorly to fight evil and redeem the Acholi land from violence in 1985.
She led a rebellion against the government in 1986 marching her troops armed with magical stones for grenades and shear nut oil as body armor to take over Kampala. Her fighters were however defeated by the National Resistance Army (NRA) in 1987 near Jinja before fleeing to neighboring Kenya where she sought refuge until her demise in 2007.
In 1987, Lukoya, after the spirits reportedly left Lakwena embarked on a journey to establish several ritual prayer centers in East Acholi areas of Kitgum which got him in trouble with the government. He was eventually arrested and imprisoned at Luzira Maximum Prison over allegations of engaging in rebel activities in 1989 and was released in 1992.
In 1993, he established the New Jerusalem International Tabernacle Ministry church in Gulu. Lukoya’s lifestyle has been so controversial over the years as he cast himself as god who possesses supernatural powers to heal and raise the dead. On several occasions, he got arrested by the police for holding illegal prayers and setting shrines within the community, claiming to heal the sick who ended up dying in his shrine and survived lynching over false prophesies.
