Northern Uganda leaders urged to unite

Jun 20, 2012

Ministers Hillary Onek and Sam Engola call on leaders and people of northern Uganda to unite for dev't

By John Odyek

Ministers from northern Uganda, Hilary Onek (internal affairs) and Sam Engola (State minister for housing) have urged leaders and people in the north to unite to foster development.

“Our people have suffered a lot from the 20 years of war caused by the LRA. There are many development projects coming to the north so we need to work together to see that development takes place,” Onek told journalists.

Onek asked the leaders to reconcile and not fight each other.

“There are spoilers who don’t want to see development. There are people who are seeking political positions and jobs and go around rumour-mongering. There are some who talk ill about one minister to another. This has to stop,” Onek said.

But the minister declined to reveal the “spoilers” and “those fighting each other”.

He [Onek] warned individuals and groups against collecting funds claiming they will take it to support people suffering from nodding disease in northern Uganda and said such people should have Police permit to do so or they should be registered organizations or NGOs.

“I have asked Police to investigate groups and individuals collecting money for nodding disease to find out who authorized them to collect the money. When you collect public money you have to account for it,” Onek asserted.

Onek and Engola held a joint press conference at the Media Center in Kampala and were flanked by Alfred Omwony Ogaba, RDC Lamwo district.

The internal affairs minister said the Acholi, Lango, West Nile and Greater North Parliamentary Groups would work together to unite the leaders from northern Uganda.

Engola said there was a lot of misunderstanding among leaders in the north. “We are appealing to politicians to work together. We suffered together and so we need to see development together,” Engola urged.

He said that there were people sending wrong information with the intention of dividing people and their leaders.

The RDC of Lamwo district, Ogaba said the elected leaders today in northern Uganda were post-conflict leaders and they are all faced with the problem of recovery and reconciliation.

“There are reports going around saying there is conflict among the leaders which is wrong. We need a positive working relationship between the leaders,” Ogaba stressed.

Northern Uganda has had its share of relative peace since fugitive LRA leader, Joseph Kony and his rebels were forced out of the country in 2006 following two decades of war in that part of the country.

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