By Otim Nape
Tororo County MP Annet Nyakecho must be among those Ugandan politicians who are born extremely unlucky.
Since joining Parliament in 2011 as woman MP Otuke, the youthful politician has been swinging from one trouble to another. In Otuke, where she stood because she married influential wealthy elder Anthony Okwenye (Foods & Beverages)’s son, she got into problems getting rejected by voters from day one.
This was after she wrote a letter to President Museveni inviting him to come and take over large tracts of land which she claimed was idle and badly needed to be developed. The land was located at Attira and Museveni took the offer with open hands putting in place a demonstration livestock farm.
The elders felt this was giving away community land too much because Otuke had already given away land for what became Barilege State Lodge, Alir Airfield, land for the ASTU project of the Uganda Police Force and Ogor land for the army detach where Museveni based to oversee the anti-LRA offensive in early 2000s.
It was too late for Nyakecho to reverse her offer of land to the president but the Lango elders in Otuke took this to be abominable: a woman giving away land in a place where she was married as opposed to being born there.
To make it worse she was even a Japhadolah from Tororo and not Langi by tribe. The community protested resulting into the murder of one Oluge in late 2011. Oluge was an influential opinion leader and his death at the hands of a pro-Nyakecho mob was squarely blamed on her as her land donation to Museveni was taken to be the spark of all this chaos. During Oluge’s burial, which Nyakecho skipped, Emeritus Bishop Mary ZedekiOtim publicly cursed Nyakecho calling on the gods to always judge her harshly.
Since that time, life became a hell for her and was shunned by colleagues in the Lango Parliamentary Group. The Attira land saga created grievances that resulted into political problems that resulted into Nyakecho badly losing her seat in 2016 NRM primaries. She got 2,000 votes against her opponent’s 20,000 votes.
In the end, she couldn’t go to the constituency and even her marriage to Mzee Anthony Okwenye’s son crumbled and OmaraAtubo who had worked hard to bring her abandoned her like a plague. She also got issues in Kampala financially, lost her house to money lenders and even suffered the shame of being publicly evicted from the modest two-roomed house she had rented in one of the city suburbs. Her land lady was a lady from Kyeyo and she couldn’t stomach her defaulting anymore.
The land lady called journalists to film Nyakecho’s humiliating eviction from the Muzigo. Riding on her powerful political connections in NRM party and State House, Nyakecho relocated to her birth place Tororo where she went with a lot of money and competed with FDC strongman GeofreyEkanya of Tororo County.
It wasn’t easy; even during campaigns in Tororo, she was followed by misfortunes including two people being knocked dead by her campaign convoy, a thing that greatly demonized her and favored Ekanya. In the end she won and Ekanya narrowly trailed behind her.
Some of the disappointed Ekanya supporters even tried witchcraft on her but it somehow didn’t work. Some dismissed her as confused wondering why she first competed in Otuke. Ekanya went to court and won in High Court Mbale but Nyakecho rushed to Court of Appeal where Justices, under Deputy CJ Steven Kavuma, saved many hitherto very scared NRM cadres.
She won the case against Ekanya on appeal but was left with a lot of legal fees to pay for the lawyers. In the meantime, Nyakecho who is barely 40 consoled herself in matters of the heart by falling in love with Gideon Onyango, a married man, who later became SamiaBugwe South MP ousting John Mulimba in 2016.
They now have a child together who Nyakecho birthed recently as she battled court cases. Onyango has continued lecturing at Busitema University even after becoming MP. He has a home near the University main campus and smitten Nyakecho regularly visits him there whenever they are not in Kampala where she chairs the ICT Committee of Parliament.
M7 STUCK WITH HER: It appears the gods cursing her haven’t relented if the recent experience suffered by her party chairman YK Museveni is anything to go by. During a land mobilization tour in Tororo district, Museveni appeared on a radio talk show where Nyakecho came along.
Throughout the talk show, callers ranted advising Museveni to keep distance from very unpopular leaders like Nyakecho. They accused her of all sorts of things including abandoning them after being elected (apparently they didn’t appreciate the court battle was taking toll on her).
They assured Museveni of future electoral defeat if he continues associating mobilization activities in Tororo County with such leaders. Sources within the Presidential entourage say Museveni was shocked to the marrow.
“He thought the problem was the Langi tribalism in Otuke and believed Tororo people loved her [Nyakecho] since it’s her birth place and was shocked to find it’s the opposite,” said a top State House official who was with the President in Tororo.
“After the show he [M7] asked what I’m I going to do for you my daughter if you fail here?Otuke is obviously not an option for you anymore; so where is your political future going to be if this is what people at home are saying about you?” We are told Nyakecho looked embarrassed, subdued and just nervously smiled as the big man from Rwakitura jokingly made his point after the radio talk show. Reliable sources say Museveni’s long term plan was to appoint his long term political servant Nyakecho to a ministerial post and that the ICT committee role was meant to boost her profile and prepare her for the eventual ministerial appointment. To comment in this story, email us on mulengeranews@gmail.com
