Oyam picks Col Engola successor tomorrow 

Political heavy-weights from Kampala, among them President Museveni, yesterday made last-ditch pitches to sway undecided voters in Oyam North Constituency to cast the ballot for flag bearers of their respective parties. 

Others who combed the northern Uganda district before campaigns officially closed last evening included National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, and his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) counterpart Patrick Oboi Amuriat. 

Lira Municipality Member of Parliament Jimmy Akena, who heads a splinter faction of Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party, also came in handy to drum up final support for the only female candidate in the race, Dr Eunice Apio Otuko.  
 
About 93,000 voters in Oyam North Constituency in Oyam District will go to the polls tomorrow to pick a new MP to replace former State Minister for Labour, Col (rtd) Charles Macodwogo Engola.  
Pte Wilson Sabiiti, a military guard, shot the minister dead at his home in Kyanja, a Kampala suburb, on May 2. 

There are four candidates in the race, among them, academic-cum-researcher Otuko of UPC, one of Uganda’s oldest political parties. 
In the contest is Mr Samuel Engola Okello, a son of the slain minister that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party picked as its flag bearer. 

Other contenders are NUP’s Daniel Okello and Mr Newton Freddy Okello of FDC, meaning the by-election is an affair of political parties unlike in other similar contests where Independents previously outnumbered party-sponsored candidates. 

In a political stump speech yesterday at Tegony Primary School in Iceme Town Council, President Museveni said the ruling party’s political strategy is informed by science, not guesswork. 
“From the beginning we were telling you we are here for your good. I am not here looking for anything because I have got everything in my home,” he said, telling Oyam voters that his backing of Sam Okello Junior is for their own good. 

He said the slain minister joined NRM because he was a clear-headed cadre, worked for and was excited over the current prevailing peace in Oyam which in the past suffered the brutality of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency.
 
Inthe days shortly after Col Engola’s killing, President Museveni revealed that the deceased was key in uprooting the rebels from Oyam and other northern Uganda enclaves and residents feted him with the nickname Macodwogo, loosely translated as “fire is back”, for his role in restoring peace which allowed them to light fire and cook outside their houses.   

In that context, the President argued that the minister’s son carried a better political DNA to work with the government and complete his late father’s unfinished leadership business. 

“When it comes to this unfortunate situation of getting a replacement, then you’re lucky to get one of the children who has been growing up near him (late Engola). For me, I would go for that boy because I would say in my head, logically, maybe this boy learnt from his father,” Mr Museveni added. 

A handful of Opposition supporters, among them UPC member and Lango cultural institution premier George Opota, were presented at the rally as having switched sides to the ruling party.
  
Earlier on Monday, Bobi Wine told a rally in Oyam Town that recycling another NRM loyalist to represent the constituency in Parliament would be a sell-out and an endorsement for recurring corruption and land grabbing vices.  

He warned the electorates against receiving bribes from any candidate, their agents or supporters because such people only have interest in satisfying their needs rather than working for the development of the people. 

“I know they are going to come to you with a lot of money, but I want to implore you my brothers and sisters, your future and the future of your children is more important than the Shs5,000 that they are going to give you,” the runner-up in the 2021 presidential vote said. 

He added: “You can eat the money that they’re going to give you, but remember it will only take you (as natives) to change the circumstances of this place (Oyam). I also want to ask every one of you to become the campaign manager of Daniel Okello.”

Earlier, Lira City East MP Jimmy Akena, who heads a faction of UPC aligned to the ruling party, criticised NRM members for portraying themselves as “saints” in supporting a candidate within a bereaved family.
Akena was campaigning for UPC candidate, Dr Otuko, in Abok Sub-county on Saturday last week.

Some NRM members have questioned Mr Akena’s participation in the campaign, prompting him to defend his presence and vow to protect UPC votes until the final ballot is cast.

Mr Akena, a son of former president Milton Obote, said: “I needed to point out very clearly to them (NRM) that when I stood in 2006, the NRM north regional vice chairman (Sam Engola) was the candidate I stood against and the chairman of NRM who is the President of Uganda, campaigned for his candidate. I have not complained.”

FDC party President Patrick Amuriat Oboi, while canvassing votes for their flagbearer Newton Freddy Okello, told the people of Iceme Sub-county not to waste their votes on any other candidate except theirs.

“You people here have been electing NRM after Ben Wacha was thrown out of Parliament. Now that we have our very own, we should support him,” he said.

Oyam’s choices in tomorrow’s ballot 

Dr Eunice Apio Otuko, 48, human rights and peace activist
Party: Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC)
 The academic and researcher is wife of UPC strongman and former MP Fred Ebil. She holds a doctorate degree from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Dr Otuko has worked to emancipate women in post-conflict northern Uganda and aims to fight household poverty.
 

Newton Freddy Okello, 41, health practitioner
Party: Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) 
A clinician and father of four, Mr Okello said if elected tomorrow, he will work to ensure “economic recovery programme” for every homestead in the constituency. He said FDC is the only party to be trusted, claiming others are in cahoots with the ruling NRM.
 
Samuel Okello Engola Junior, 38, civil engineer
 Party: National Resistance Movement (NRM)
 The civil engineer is in the race to succeed his father and former minister, Col (rtd) Charles Engola, killed by a bodyguard on May 2. He intends to pick the reins from where his late father stopped, suggesting a politics of continuity rather than disruption.
  
Daniel Okello, teacher
Party: National Unity Platform (NUP)  
 A graduate teacher from Uganda Martyrs University, Mr Okello has been the Oyam District coordinator of the People Power Movement, the activist arm of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party, which he joined in 2019. His campaign promise is weeding out corruption and lifting constituents out of extreme poverty. 
Compiled by Bill Oketch