Paramount Chief blames poverty on greedy leaders

He was speaking on Friday at the chiefdom headquarters during an event to unveil an elephant monument built by Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) at Layibi Corner in Gulu City.

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The event was also attended by Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny-Dollo and Disaster Preparedness minister Hillary Onek.

He said he was disappointed that the leaders were fighting among themselves because non-Acholi were allowed to build the monument.

“We are happy that UBL came and built this monument for us. But it is a big shame, there are a lot of quarrels around it because it was built by non-Acholi. Building only this one monument; you mean we the Acholi people cannot manage to build this?” he wondered.

Rwot Acana said despite meeting with nearly every leader in the sub-region and discussing with them his vision for the Acholi, none of them has responded.

“You choose to keep quiet, no feedback and you don’t do what I ask of you; that shows we are not together, you only fight for yourselves and that is why we are lagging behind,” he said.
 “If we don’t change the way we utilise the resources we have, we will be slaves to others, but we are already slaves, most things that now happen here in the region, it is people from elsewhere who make decisions for us,” he added.

The cultural leader also lashed at the Acholi elite living outside the sub-region and abroad, whom he said do not mind about developing their area.

He cited a meeting in 2007 in San Diego, US, during which he met Acholi in the diaspora and discussed at length how to harness opportunities around the oil discovered in the sub-region but said until now, none of them has responded.

Justice Dollo in his remarks emphasised that conditioning districts across the sub-region to come up with by-laws that will compel households to engage in meaningful crop production is the only way that will see them out of poverty.

“Paramount Chief, you can communicate to your subjects, all the district councils of Acholi should come up with by-laws that every household must have a cassava, sorghum, simsim garden and whoever does not have them must be dealt with,” he said.

Justice Dollo said the poverty in Acholi was real and that it was most important that leaders and stakeholders derive ways of eradicating it.

“We have enough land; every household should be a strong one, with enough food, how much sorghum has a household produced? How much simsim? What about cash crops, what has a household grown? This will position us to regain the economic prosperity we had in the past,” he added.

The elephant monument, which was built at a cost of about Shs170 million, is a symbol of the stature and cultural heritage of the Acholi tribe.

During the ceremony, Mr Alfred Balekagira, the UBL supply chain director, said the construction of the monument was the beginning of a strong bond with the Acholi people to embark on large scale production of crops to supply the beer maker.

“Behind the monument, there is a lot of collaboration. Through different crops such as maize, sorghum, and barley, we are cooperating with this region to facilitate local production of these crops that form inputs into our production chain,” Mr Balekagira said.

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He also handed over 1.5 tonnes of sorghum seeds to the chiefdom to be distributed to farmers as rains resume.

“Today we also donated 1.5 tonnes of sorghum seeds, which will be given to farmers in this region, which will act as a seed so that they can grow the sorghum. Just for context, the seeds that were donated can be used to plant to 400 hectares of sorghum crop.”