West Nile:Besigye still the political juggernaut

On the trail with the 2011 Presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye

It’s that typical sunny morning in Dufeli village, Moyo, when the village is embraced by dust and hot wind and the soil glisten as it reflect the hot morning sun ray.

Half naked children play by the potholed murrum roads, their skin ashen by the ground the play on. Together with adults, they weave and merriment to Kizza Besigye’s convoy as it snakes through their village, combing for votes.

The convoy came to a stop at a homestead, where graves line the compound; it’s the family home to the late Orosula Endreo, who perished in a motor accident together with his wives and children. Together eight family members are buried here.

“The roads in this area are bad, my brother died with his family while on their way from a wedding, their car hit a ditch and overturned” the home caretaker said. The accident occurred last month.

Dufeli is a village at the extreme end of Uganda; 4km away from the Sudan-Uganda Border, to get there, one has to drive through the rocky hills and gully roads, making the drive a frightening venture.

The village suffers from water shortage, during the dry seasons, the crops wither and when the rains return, the gardens get flood. In addition, the elephants from the Panzala reserve area destroy the crops in rainy seasons as they look for food.

“Here, we don’t feel the hand of government and the NGOs that reach here, only come to do research,” said Mary Asumpta, who graduated a fortnight ago with a degree in Development Studies from Gulu University.

Asumpta, like many other youth in the area have no hopes of getting employment anytime soon. In Dafuli, residents have the option of labouring in the gardens, venture into fishing or do retail business with their neighbours in Sudan.

“Business is tough here, transport is non existence and when you get to the border, you have to pay taxes of not less than sh20, 000 for a basket of fish” said Moses Vurri.

The issues raised in this far end of Uganda however cuts across the West Nile region. When asked, the people in this region outlines lack of electricity, poor road infrastructure and water shortage as the top most priority they would want the next President to deal with.

The region gave birth to Uganda’s third President, Idi Amin and when he was overthrown, several of its sons, who were soldiers in the National Army, resorted to rebel activities that destroyed the social and economic facets of the region.

It was only in the mid 2000s that the peace deals between the rebel groups and government ushered peace in the region. People are now concentrating on developing their lives but like their neighbours in Acholi and Lango sub-region, the region is yet to get on its feet.

According to the National Bureau of Statistic, the population of West Nile stands at 2,813,800 people and the district with the highest number of people is Nebbi, followed by Arua.

The main road from the capital Kampala to the main town of Arua has been tarmac and this has reduced travel hours from eight to six and made travel safer. Business people can now travel at night, which is convenient.

The region has the largest number of ex-servicemen and government is now promising to pay their entitlement. Government has granted the region more districts bringing the total to eight. So will these achievements change the political landscape?

Though the smooth road was constructed by 2006 elections, it did not translate into votes for NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni.

Their resentment they say stems from bad roads and lack of electricity plus poor social services.

Although the roads are fair within the urban centres, the greater part of West Nile and major roads to Sudan, their major trading partners, are impassable and the bridges are yet to be upgraded from wood to concrete or permanent status.

The West Nile region is one of the only two regions not connected to the national grid, the other being Karamoja. Efforts by government to take electricity to the region are yet to yield positive results. The 3.5megawatts Nyagak hydropower project stalled two years ago.

Going by past elections, West Nile is largely opposition turf. Kizza Besigye won in five of the six districts in the region.

In Adjumani, Museveni scored 11,277 to Besigye’s 19,919. In Arua he scored 67,436 to Besigye’s 103,133.

In Nebbi Museveni got 54,208, while Besigye got 56,663. Museveni again lost in Moyo with 11,610, with Besigye getting 14,901 and in Yumbe with 19,832 to Besigye’s 24,297.

It’s in Koboko that Museveni got 26,842, while Besigye got 2,694.

However, in counties like Vuura and Okoro where Museveni has always won, the votes are reducing. In 2001, Museveni got 64%, 60% in 2006 while Besigye for 31% in 2001 to 34% in 2006.

In Okoro, Museveni got 74% in 2001, Besigye 20%, in 2006, Museveni got 51% in 2006 and Besigye 40.5%.

The current parliamentary seats however give a different picture of the political landscape showing NRM with the majority. Of the 20 MPs, the ruling party has eight followed by FDC with six. The rest are taken by independents (four) and Uganda People’s Congress (two). Of the seven district leaders in the region, six are NRM, while only one is FDC.

Despite having more MPs and district leaders in the region, NRM’s presidential candidate did not perform well in the last election.

The local people say the MPs and local leaders concentrated on their campaigns fearing the mention of Museveni would cost them votes. In addition to old sentiments, this year, factors like wrangles over money within NRM district leaders would be an additional factor in favour of Besigye.

Last month, shs700m given by NRM candidate to women’s groups in the four district of Yumbe, Koboko, Arua and Maracha was shared by NRM leaders and given to their campaigned agents. In November sh10m given to his campaign team to organise his elections was hijacked by officials.

When Kizza, as he is popularly called in West Nile arrived on Monday 24 for a week long campaign, the euphoria of 2006 was not lost.

The showdown of who wields the axe in the region came in the town of Arua, where the NRM organised a party, alongside Besigye’s rally. The curtains came down on Sarturday,29, at 4pm, when Besigye entered town, crowds poured on the street, singing and dancing to songs such as “Toka kwa barabara, Besigye imeingia, toa gaishya yako, tunataka Besigye. (Give way, Besigye has entered, remove your rubbish, we want Besigye).

Others chanted in the local language; “Anyia emi eza oyee, (we have eaten your meat for nothing)

In his campaign, Besigye rode on issues that have always given him the majority votes in the region. He promised West Nile that electrifying the region is his top most priority, followed by road construction.

The sentiments were high on the poor quality of education as Besigye outline result from Primary leaving examination. “Yumbe got 27 first grade, all from private schools, Nebbi got 57, and 30 of which are from private schools, Adjumani, Marcaha, Arua, all the same poor performances, where is the future of the region,?” Besigye asked.

He outlined his plan as building more classrooms, re-training teachers, doubling teacher’s salary to sh400, 000 and providing lunch at school.

In comparing Amin and Museveni, Besigye touched on positives codes in Koboko, Amin’s home town. He said Amin deserved recognition for contributing to the development of the country. He said Amin built schools, army barracks, and the international conference centre. Amin, started the process of taking electricity to West Nile from Jinja before he was overthrown in 1979, this option still remains open.

The sentiments over the sale of Okoro corporative Society in 2004, and allegation of it having been bought by President Museveni’s brother Salim Sale, is still high in Paidha. The population said they are still grieved by the cutting down of Lendu forest, the largest man made forest in the region and others like Ossi, Awang and Okavu could still play in Besigye’s favour if the huge crowd that turned up to listen to him was anything to go by.

On the dusty, road from Moyo to Yumbe, an old man, stopped Besigye’s convoy, he had one request, “Help us get our payment as ex-servicemen,” he said. Several of such requests were made at every rally in West Nile region. The IPC candidate promised to pay thousands of ex-servicemen their due arrears.

He promised to make Agriculture the engine of the economy; his government will set up irrigation schemes in the region, avail farmers tractors for hire at sub-county headquarters and build silos in each region to stabilize the prices of farm commodities during surplus and offer food supplies in the face of famine.

The FDC government will upgrade Arua airfield to an international airport.

Dr Besigye explained why the lost in past elections and assured his supporters that they will win the February 18, elections. In the last elections, he said, we were a young party and in addition, we were not prepared as a party. However, we now have committees at every polling station.

“We did not win for two reasons, one, other parts of the country took long to realize NRM party is evil and also our votes were stole, because we, ourselves were not organized enough to protect our votes,” he said.

He promised that no amount of intimidation will prevent his party from announcing own result. He said his team will control polling stations, tally results at its own tally centre and announce them.

His message of “change is coming for a better Uganda” inspired voters. “Besigye has the capacity of convincing people and for me, I am sure this may not remain verbal, he is going to fulfill them, not in a year or two but over a period of time,” said David Acidri, 40, a Mechanic.

If a crowd in West Nile region is anything to go by, then Besigye still remains the political juggernaut he has been in West Nile region.

Political conflict

However, the failure by Besigye’s camp to amicably solve a conflict involving two of their leading party officials in the region seems to be working against Besigye’s win in Maracha district.

MPs Alex Onzima (Maracha) and Kasiano Wadri (Terego) have battled over the creation of Maracha since 2006. This was solved last year by returning Terego to Arua. However the pull and push over the location of the district headquarters led to Onzima’s coziness with NRM officials that culminated in his expulsion from FDC and his eventual defection to NRM.

Onzima’s supporters feel alienated from the party by the FDC. “But Onzima is still popular here. We support him because he is fighting for a cause that will benefit all of us,” says Moses Drawuzu.

In Arua Municipality, there is the unresolved conflict between incumbent FDC MP Akbar Godi, now an independent, with Aminah Atako, contesting on FDC ticket. Besigye, only made a diplomatic statement while in Arua that, “They are our people and we believe in democratic principals.”