Lakwena’s mom longs for her

May 02, 2006

Alice Lakwena, the architect of a sinister guerrilla warfare in northern Uganda in 1987, is homesick.

By Joe Nam
Alice Lakwena, the architect of a sinister guerrilla warfare in northern Uganda in 1987, is homesick. Since her attempt to march from Gulu to Kampala with her rag-tag army aborted in Busoga in 1988, leaving over 100,000 people dead, she now desperately wants to return home.
Lakwena, the Holy Spirit chief priestess, has been holed up in Ifo Dabaab refugee camp in northern Kenya for over 15 years. She has expressed willingness to return, provided the government meets the conditions she has set, which include building for her a clinic to practise herbal medicine in Gulu, and a resettlement package.
In 2004, the government sent Lakwena $50,000 (sh90m) as a goodwill gesture to bring her back home. Information is however, filtering in that Lakwena had wanted to receive the money in Kampala after her return, and not in Kenya.
It is an open secret in some circles in Gulu that Lakwena’s seemingly excessive demands are actually from her husband Kaggwa Obol, a Makerere University Economics graduate from Bungatira in Gulu, who fled to Kenya with her.
Lakwena’s mother Evirina Ayaa is nostalgic about her daughter’s return.
“My daughter wants to return home,” says Ayaa. “My daughter was never a fighter, she was lured into rebellion by officers of the defunct Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) to use her spiritual powers against the NRA.”
Ayaa, who is now a born-again Christian and disciple under the Lifeline Ministries of Pastor Julius Oyet, says: “I am aging and my eye-sight is failing. I want to be with my daughter, she is the one who will take good care of me.”
Ayaa recounts that Lakwena was born a very healthy and pretty girl. “She was a woman whom men would do anything to have her hand in marriage. She was robust and very beautiful. It never occurred to me that she would become involved in the atrocities, such as the ones that happened under her rebel group, the Holy Spirit Movement.”
Ayaa also confirmed allegations that Lakwena was possessed by a spirit around 1984 and was led by the spirit to pray and fast for 40 days inside the waters of Murchison Falls.
She says before the rebellion, Lakwena was just practising herbal medicine at her home in Opit. Ayaa blames the Acholi military leaders of the defunct UNLA for ruining her daughter’s life by luring her into rebellion.
“If you see Museveni, please tell him I want my daughter back home. Tell him I support him and have voted for him in all presidential elections since 1996,” Ayaa says.
Meanwhile, reports from Ifo Dadaab refugee camp say Lakwena is now a widely consulted traditional healer at the camp. She has also formed a holy spirit youth band operated by children trafficked from Acholi with promise of scholarships from the United Nations. Some of the children rescued from Lakwena have testified to gross abuses against them such as changing their names and forced marriages.
Ends

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