Lira: Akello and Okello ‘fight’ over Erute North County

Lira district local government received a consignment of 189 iron sheets and relief food for affected households in the same community.

By Frank Oyugi

Lira – July 27, 2022: Men of God who have always devoted their prayers for the political wellbeing of this nation may have to refocus and seriously intercede for Erute North County in Lira district.

This is the county where toxic political blood is running in the veins of the area Member of Parliament and the district chairman.

Both Christine Akello popular among her voters with her political tagline as “Gwok adako” and Richard Cox Max (RCM) Okello Orik has for a span of one month been embroiled in a bitter war of words.

In Lango dialect, Gwok Adako means “a female dog”.

It all started with the controversy around Oket Kwer primary school in Aromo sub-county in Lira district. The school got deroofed following a heavy rainstorm and has taken notice of this disaster, Christine Akello penned a request to the Office of the Prime Minister who responded in the affirmative.

According to a letter from the OPM which copy has been obtained by this publication, Lira district local government received a consignment of 189 iron sheets and relief food for affected households in the same community.

“The relief food should not take more than two weeks in your stores…… and it is strictly for the affected households and priority should be given to the elderly, child-headed families and those living with HIV and Aids,” these are some of the wordings in the letter.

It should, however, be noted that by the time the OPM delivered the iron sheets for reroofing the structure at Oketkwer primary school, Lira district local government had already fixed the situation and there was a suggestion that the iron sheets from OPM be used to reroof another primary school. This would be a point of divergence between the area MP and the district chairman – Orik.

Lira district is stuck with at least five other schools which had their roofs blown off by strong wind and are spread in the sub-counties of Aromo, Amach, and Itek.

The area MP has maintained her stand that the iron sheets were strictly meant for Oketkwer primary school and is against any diversion while Orik insists that other schools in bad shape need to be rescued with these iron sheets and the matter remains in contention.

As political pundits and analysts were still diagnosing the root cause of this standoff between the two parties, another bombshell dropped – last Sunday.

This time, MP Akello ordered an immediate halt on the ground clearing of a proposed site for the construction of Barlonyo health center III on grounds that Lira district chairman RCM Okello Orik and his team did not notify of the site hand over to Wanyi, a company contracted to construct the health center.

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She further alleged that the health center was a presidential pledge and because of the efforts she gave it would be wrong to keep her in the dark.

But according to Okello, Barlonyo health center III is not part of the presidential pledge to the community and clarified that the project was channeled through the Ministry of Health under a program codenamed ‘UGIFT’.

Asked on QFM’s Yitewtolo morning talkback program by Frank Oyugi, the show host under which laws she acted to stop the construction process, Gwok Adako responded: “My action was not backed by any laws but I and the community just decided because we were not informed.”

She further admitted that she didn’t know the source of the funding.

Barlonyo has a dark history and this dates back to 2004 when the Lord’s Resistance Army [LRA] rebels ran down an internally displaced people’s camp and killed close to 300 people.

To date, the community remains traumatized despite a series of government interventions.

Meanwhile, talks doing the round are that the pandemonium in Erute North stems from rumors hovering in the eardrums of the area MP Christine Akello that RCM Okello Orik intends to run against her in the 2026 elections, something that the latter has neither denied nor accepted.

“I can’t tell why she quaking, I am still the district chairman and I have to deliver development for my people, I haven’t said anywhere that I intend to be the next MP of Erute County North, but nothing prevents me from contesting, in any case, I am the most qualified,” Orik roared.