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By Simon Opoka
JUSTICE MINISTER – HON. NORBERT MAO SHOULD RESIGN: SILENCE AS BRUTALITY AGAINST THE ACOLI PEOPLE AND HON. ROBERT KYAGULANYI’S TEAM IN ACHOLI ESCALATES IS MERCENARY BETRAYAL COMPLICITY
Hon. Norbert Mao,
Minister of Justice,
Acoli son,
Two-time former presidential candidate,
And now MP candidate for Laroo-Pece Constituency in Gulu City…
Your silence as brutality spreads across Acholi is not leadership.
It is not wisdom.
It is not neutrality.
It is complicity, cold, deliberate, and dangerous.
I am in Gulu City. I witnessed more than the public could see.
I was in contact with the coordinators of Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi at NUP Headquarters and here in Gulu City – throughout their planning for the second leg of campaigns in the Acholi sub-region. Their plans were peaceful, lawful, and transparent. But we now know their structures were deeply infiltrated by state intelligence.
I also shared with key NRM mobilizers in Acholi that failure to address the UBoS articulated problems in Acholi should not be an excuse to fight politicians that expose the things against the excesses of MPs and Ministers in Museveni’s government.
Instead, the armed cadres have chosen to seize NUP posters in Acholi. Bobi Wine’s route plans were leaked. Compromised individuals followed and disrupted their campaign stops.
To manufacture a “security threat” around Hon. Kyagulanyi just to justify violence and to extort state resources is evil. It is pure evil, especially against a region still healing from decades of NRA–LRA trauma, and our recovery has been plundered by corruption and lack of involvement of victims in planning their own rehabilitation.
THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER 5th: A SHAMEFUL, UNFORGIVABLE BETRAYAL
On December 5th, 2025, armed UPDF soldiers marched out of the 4th Division Barracks in single-line formations. They spread across Gulu City carrying Balaalo cattle sticks – the same instruments used by foreign cattle invaders to terrorise and dispossess our communities in Apaa, Palaro, Okidi, and elsewhere.
They beat anyone wearing red, especially our youth.
Most of those soldiers spoke Acoli.
Just imagine it:
– Among them were Acoli soldiers
– On Acoli land
– Wielding Balaalo sticks
– To beat Acoli children
To silence Acoli voices
For the benefit of a regime that took their land and failed to secure our future
The tools used to drive cattle over stolen Acholi land are now being used to drive fear into the hearts of our own children.
This is not policing.
This is not crowd control.
This is political punishment – planned, sanctioned, and executed.
HON. NORBERT MAO, WHERE IS YOUR VOICE?
As Minister of Justice, you should have led the call for:
-Arrests
-Investigations
-Dismissals
-Accountability
Instead, you remain silent as Acoli youth are brutalised, their rights stripped, their voices crushed.
*If you can not use your office to protect your people in their hour of need, you should resign as Minister of Justice.*
YOUR MERCENARY POLITICS ARE NO LONGER HIDDEN
Your refusal to act is not confusion.
It is not oversight.
It is a pattern—a choice.
In your quest for mercenary privilege and regime favours, you:
Hijacked the IPOD chairmanship from NUP, PPP, and UPC, even though your turn is due in March 2027.
Denied NUP their constitutionally mandated campaign financing by tying it to IPOD MoU signing.
Now preside silently as state machinery sabotages Hon. Kyagulanyi’s campaigns in Acholi.
You traded principle for convenience.
You traded justice for proximity to power.
You traded a generation’s hope for personal survival.
For someone raised lovingly by a Muganda stepmother in Jinja, your behaviour—weaponizing state power against a Muganda politician in Acholi—is painfully ironic and deeply disappointing.
Leadership should lift, not crush.
It should heal, not wound.
It should protect, not persecute.
ACOLI ARE NOT CATTLE
Acoli are not cattle to be beaten with Balaalo sticks.
Our youth are not criminals because they wear red.
Our land is not a battlefield for political mercenaries.
The brutality in Acholi is a stain.
Your silence is a second stain.
Your manoeuvres for regime favour at the expense of your people are the third stain.
Hon. Mao, what happened to you?
In 1996, you stood for Acoli youth when they were arbitrarily arrested by the UPDF 4th Division. Today, you stand aside, watching the same youth beaten for merely welcoming a presidential candidate.
Soldiers beating Baganda supporters of Kyagulanyi in Acholi, under your watch, is not only immoral.
It is shameful.
It is tribalistic.
And it makes your long-time defence of Museveni’s regime look empty and abusive.
You cheapen the presidency you once sought.
You cheapen the justice you are sworn to uphold.
And you cheapen the memory of every Acoli who has suffered under state violence.
I used to vote for you for the president. Now, you have made the choice too easy for Acholi. We shall stand with fellow victims, not with those who profit from our suffering.
OPOKA Simon
Candidate, Member of Parliament.
Laroo-Pece Constituency
Uganda People’s Congress (UPC)
Gulu City
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