By Our Reporters
NRM supporters in Serere district are nervously threatened seeing their chief tormentor Alice Alaso steadily matching on to recapture the district woman MP Seat come 2021. Since losing to NRM’s Hellen Adoa, Alaso had lived a low profile life until recently when she resurfaced with a bang. She has lately frequently been very visible at funerals and other public gatherings and money doesn’t seem to be her problem anymore. This has left the NRM supporters very disturbed seeing the woman, for whom the public was at some point asked to contribute Adoa lawyers’ court fees, seemingly swimming in money whose source remains a mystery to many. Some suspect it could be her good friend Bukedea Woman MP Anita Amongi financially supporting Alaso’s resurgent efforts since money isn’t a problem for generous Amongi anymore. “She has been attending regular public ceremonies and makes very big contributions and she is clearly into early campaigning to recapture the Serere woman MP,” says a Teso-based analyst adding that “this has made the situation tense.” Some NRM supporters are curious as to why President Museveni and his local representatives like the RDCs don’t seem to be politically hostile to Alaso anymore. There are also rumors peddled mostly by Alaso’s braggart supporters that State House has already given assurances the big man won’t be hostile nor tolerate the deployment of the military in Serere as Alaso once again faces Adoa for the 2021 race. “The President will of course stay with his candidate Adoa but won’t be hostile to Alaso. This is a rumor that has refused to go away and it has unsettled many NRM cadres who believed Alaso was gone forever,” says a source. The conduct of Alaso’s supporters has only made things more complicated because they keep bragging about many things. Some have been taunting long serving NRM supports how they will die poor. Some Alaso supporters openly claim to have been connected to OPM and OWC secretariat to supply cassava seedlings under the GoU program in return for good pay. This has greatly unsettled Adoa’s camp some of whose members have been trying to petition the President in vain. One local pundit said: “Alaso has turned out to be worse than a double edged sword because she is hostile to both FDC and NRM as well. When it comes to People Power, it’s what her known agents are promoting most. They rarely mention Muntu’s New Formation yet there are fears those young men massively being recruited into People Power will be handed over to the President as Bobi Wine defectors at his upcoming visit.” This has caused more confusion and some NRM supporters are fearful of the possibility of Alaso defecting to the NRM in which case her diehard opposition supporters could replace many senior NRM cadres in the district’s elective positions. Should that scenario come to pass, there are fears even Adoa might fail to retain the NRM flag for purposes of 2021 elections. Cadres are also angry that President Museveni doesn’t seem to appreciate long serving NRM cadres and has instead resorted to generally praise supporters who have just joined to become his allies having previously opposed him openly. The angry NRM cadres even have compiled lists of companies opposition Alaso supporters have been using to buy cassava in the Serere villages for resale to the government under the OPM and OWC. The core NRM are also envious of the fact that, despite what she has gone through since losing her seat and subsequently the court case to Adoa whose lawyers had to squeeze Shs54m from Alaso, the ex-FDC Secretary General still owns her 5 houses in Kampala and recently expanded her hotel business in Soroti. They claim she has previously been subject to land grabbing allegations but security doesn’t seem to be under any pressure to act even when some of the victims are close family members. Alaso shocked many recently when she countered her step daughter Anna Adeke by building a house for her mother. This was after Adeke had put up a posh mansion for her mother from whom Alaso snatched her (Adeke’s) father.
In beefing Alaso, the Serere NRM supporters have allied with equally disgruntled NRM supporters in Bukedea who continue to complain to the President for closely working with former FDC strong lady Anita Amongi. They also refer to Kumi/Ngora’s Agnes Akiror who was equally elevated and pampered at the expense of long serving cadres like Christine Amongin Aporu. And then Museveni’s recent remarks during a meeting with Bukedea leaders praising Anita Amongi as a mobilizer of unrivalled credentials in NRM history in Teso has also moved many cadres to conclude the big man doesn’t appreciate long serving loyal cadres. The feeling is he should have praised strong and long serving NRM cadres who have since 2006 been battling and ousting FDC stalwarts. Examples include Ngora woman MP Jackie Amongin, Serere woman MP Hellen Adoa, Serere County MP Bishop Patrick Okabe, Ngora County’s David Aballa and Kumi County MP Ismail Orot all of whom became MPs after overcoming hitherto strong FDC presence in their respective areas. The supporters are angry that instead of being appreciative and publicly praising such cadres, the President has remained conspicuously silent as the braggart opposition supporters continue to arrogantly claim his State House operatives are acquiescing to Alice Alaso’s political comeback in 2021. It’s also claimed that Kasilo County MP Elijah Okupa has lately been growing very confident of easily bouncing back on grounds the Museveni State House is unlikely to fight him very viciously. “The party registered good progress in Teso in 2016 and the best strategy now would be strengthening those cadres that made it possible for those inroads to be made as opposed to rewarding opposition figures who have always stigmatized us for standing with NRM at a time it was very risky associating with it in Teso but instead the H.E. seems to be taking us for granted. We shall be using the power of the powerless to show our anger to him,” said an NRM media activist based in Soroti. “We can’t be in a party which only remembers us at election time and when it comes to time for sharing the animal, we are relegated and you begin hobnobbing with the very opposition people we have been resisting for so long.”
