The political temperature in Kole South constituency is almost reaching boiling point even with roughly two years left to the 2021 elections after.
This is after the emergence of “a money bag”, “new boy” Dean Denis Omedi Rwangkonte jumping into the political podium.
Peter Ocen Akalo the current MP, a UPC – independent leaning beat Fred Ebil Ebil – the Acting Secretary General of Uganda People’s Congress in the 2016 Parliamentary elections.
But both the incumbent (Oken Akalo) and Ebil Ebil who is expected to make a comeback in 2021 polls, have been sent into a panic mode by a young bio-chemist Dean Denis Omedi Rwongkonte who is also popularly referred to as DD.
Until lately, Dean Denis Omeni Wrangkonte was not a common name in Kole, and not much is known about him, but also no one doubts his political muscle.
This is after he started a wider program of distributing hand hoes to all the households in Kole South, covering the sub-counties of Ayer, Bala and Akalo. Akalo is the ancestral home of MP Ocen Akalo.
“I have been away, but I was in touch with my people on the ground, I understand the suffering of our people and the fact that the leaders you have elected have ignored your plights, I am now here to address them,” DD recently told a cheering crowd of over a thousand people in Bala where he also gave them hand hoes.
He equally declared that a huge chunk of land has been secured annex to Bala sub-county headquarters on which a multi billion hospital of a referral status will be built for easy access of health services to the people.
“Our women, when you conceive, don’t worry, just come for antenatal, and on delivery day, just go back with your baby because we shall provide everything including mama kits free of charge,” DD told women.
He actually told mothers that as a medic, it’s a wrong practice to distribute mama kits by the road side, an indirect jibe on the current MP Ocen Akalo who has been doing so in the recent past.
Controversy in Akalo, MP Ocen strikes
On Monday this week, Akalo literally became a battle ground after Omedi who was accompanied by all the LC3 chairpersons in Kole South took his program at Owalo trading center, not any far from Ocen’s courtyard.
Asked to welcome DD Omedi in his area, John Oculi, once a close ally of MP Ocen and his former chief campaign architect in the recent campaign triggered the emotions of the people who turned up to receive the hand hoes when he said MP Ocen Akalo called him on phone and ordered for immediate halt of distribution.
Ocen denies
However in separate interviews with local FM stations in Lango, Ocen who is not new to controversy said he was not aware of the program and could not order against it.
Ebil Ebil too, pulls trigger, fires!
Ebil Ebil seems to have read a lot of Nicholo Marcheveli’s work especially on how to deal with politics and people.
On Tuesday night, Ebil used his position as Secretary General of Uganda People’s Congress party and axed two party officials in Kole.
The duo is George Iwal, the acting UPC chairperson for Kole and Peter Oyengo of Ayet. Asked why he suspended the duo pending the party’s National Executive Council Meeting, Ebil said: “They have been involving themselves in in-disciplinary actions which contravenes the provisions on UPC Constitution including moving with independent candidate.”
Both Iwal and Oyengo have been accompanying DD Omedi in all the places he has traversed to distribute hoes and political pundits have suggested Ebil could have taken the decision out of fear that the new kid on the blog is becoming popular.
Omedi has said he doesn’t want to identify with any party because political inclinations has sharply divided the people of Kole in the past