Prime
Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo’s cry for Engola, the north
Chief Justice Alphonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo
What you need to know:
- Mr Odonga Otto, the former Aruu County MP, said he was facing trumped up charges due to politics in Pader District.
- The head of the Judiciary calls for deliberate efforts in restoring peace, security and eliminating poverty in Northern Uganda.
At the burial of Col (Rtd) Charles Okello Engola Macodwogo, state minister for labour and MP for Oyam North, on May 13, Chief Justice Alphonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, addressed a much bigger elephant in the room -- the Northern Uganda Question, and why the area remains on the fringes as the poorest part of Uganda.
Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo may be an officer of the court, whose first instinct would probably be to exercise restraint in his public utterances, but he also remains a politician who retains a very deep affection for his roots.
A known traditionalist, he hails from Agago (itself now a district) in the older Kitgum of Acholiland.
While addressing mourners in Awangi village, Iceme Sub-county, Oyam District, he talked about resurgent insecurity and how a deliberate policy to open up the vast and fertile lands of northern Uganda to the opportunities of commercial agriculture would change its fortunes.
He also spoke of a “catastrophe of widespread tree cutting for charcoal burning”, suggesting that this could be a diabolical plot to turn the north into a desert.
In the audience, representing the head of state, was Vice President Jessica Alupo, herself a retired army major.
The chief justice wondered how the colonel, a man who “courted danger on the battlefield could be killed like a dog”.
He said Engola had defeated the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the jungles of Opit, Gulu/Omoro district as commanding officer of the UPDF’s 501 Brigade, only to killed by his bodyguard on May 2.
Locals respond
When contacted, Mr Odonga Otto, the former Aruu County MP, said he was facing trumped up charges due to politics in Pader District.
“All the three case files come from Pader. So, I think it is local politics that has gone bad and it has no eye for the environment,” he said yesterday.
He added: “I want to say that those charges are politically motivated and inspired by cartels who control the charcoal trade and some of them are in the Police Force. They should not joke with the environment. If we joke with it, some of us who are rich will survive but those who are poor will perish.”
Mr Tonny Ojok, A farmer and a resident of Abella Parish in Oyam District, said the Chief Justice highlighted real issues that affect the people of northern Uganda.
“Many families here in Aleka cannot afford two meals a day because of chronic hunger and effects of cattle rustling,” he said yesterday.
Below is an abridged version of Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo’s speech:
First, kings may be wrong. David (in the Bible) was a fugitive running away from Saul who was king of Israel. Saul fought his last battle against the Philistines who murdered him together with his son Jonathan, who was the friend of the rebel, David.
When David came and found the bodies of King Saul and his friend, Jonathan, I think he said one of the most important remarks we say about great men when they fall. He said: ‘How the mighty have fallen’.
To me, this befits Col Okello Engola, now deceased. I will add my voice that we wait to know how can a man who braved danger – a man who courted danger in the battlefield – be killed like a dog. We really want to know. If only to rest the matter; we just want to know, and I’m glad investigations are being carried out.
The mighty fall in battle. The mighty if they have to fall are subjugated by an opponent who has got superior skill, then you say the mighty have fallen. You fall honourably. You don’t die like a dog.
Your Excellency, the second thing which I want to address. I will say it in English and I will have to say it in Luo. Col Okello Engola Macodwogo… I have heard people saying Macodwogo but they stop on the way. What did Col Okello Engola fight for? He did not fight so that women would [again be able to light fires and] cook for their husbands. That was just the first step towards what Okello Engola fought for. He did not fight so that we get rid of [LRA leader Joseph] Kony; the marauding gangsters who disorganised this place for a quarter century. That was just the first step.
Col Okello Engola, and he had so many other colleagues alongside him, fought for the return of real peace – not just the silencing of the gun. The silencing of the gun was the stepping stone towards achieving real peace. What is that peace? Is there peace in northern Uganda? I’ve heard my brothers and sisters talk about ‘Karimojong are disturbing us’. Me, I neighbour Karamoja. It is even wrong to say Karimojong are disturbing us.
The people of Karenga, the people of Kaabong, the people of Napak, the people of Matheniko, the people of other places towards Mbale are not disturbing their neighbours. It is the Jie not the Karimojong. It is the Jie who are disturbing their neighbours and these are the ones to be dealt with because they have taken us back to the days when Col Engola came out to fight insecurity.
This is just criminality. They’re no different from highway robbers.
Back to what Col Engola fought for, and I’m addressing this to leaders from northern Uganda, let us put our axes together. Northern Uganda is the poorest part of the country today, I think, followed by eastern. I might be wrong in the order. Why? Because we are stuck in the colonial economy.
The economy that was introduced by Governor KEB (Kristen Eskildsen Borup); the cotton economy, the tobacco economy. Now, there is even a worrying trend: [proliferation] of that type of economy – the sim sim economy, sunflower economy and I forget the other one which people say ‘Oh, I made Shs900,000!
Unless as leaders of northern Uganda we get out of the colonial economy the way the south did, the peace that Col Engola fought for will never come. He would have fought and died in vain.
Cotton was introduced in Buganda, Busoga. They don’t grow cotton any more. Because it is suicide to grow cotton.
Your Excellency, I grew up in the cotton fields of Acholiland. I know what it means from the beginning to the end, and then out of an acre if you’re lucky you get Shs500,000. If you get Shs650,000 or Shs700,000 in Lango here, they will spread your fame up to Alebtong; saying ‘that is the one who really got money’. Shs700,000 for a year’s toil!
Then the people who have abandoned cotton in Buganda and Busoga, who now grow coffee. Out of an acre they get Shs30 million. So, when they go to clubs, they go with Shs700,000 in their pockets every day just to go and enjoy the money we get in a year here.
Look at this land where we are! This is representative of the vast lands in northern Uganda. Coffee would grow here better. Coffee would grow here better than in Busoga but they are still stuck in the colonial mentality; that northern Uganda must be a labour reserve.
The best we can do in memory of Col Engola and his colleagues who fought for peace here is to get out of the colonial economy and think big - introduce coffee here.
Your Excellency, I’ve distributed macadamia in my local area, covering one square mile now. That is the economy that will salvage Northern Uganda from the sentence that was imposed on us by colonialism. Then, and only then, will we have done service to the memory of Col Okello Engola and his brothers and sisters from here, and from elsewhere in Uganda who fought for the return of peace here.
Your Excellency, finally I had forgotten something and I really want to interest you. There is a syndicate and I am saying this because this will affect me, it will affect everybody in this country. There is a syndicate to desertify--- they call it charcoal trade. There is a syndicate to desertify northern Uganda.
Only the other day Parliament passed the Anti-Climate Change Act, about a couple of years or so, with very stringent provisions. I do not understand; there are local governments here, there is a central government here and somebody comes with a power [chain] saw. Any vegetation apart from grass is mowed down and made into charcoal. Really?
And my younger brother, Odonga Otto (former MP for Aruu county), is always stopping them on the way. I’m told he is now being charged with robbery. I don’t know what it is. I don’t speak for him... I’m not his lawyer.”
