HON.IBRAHIM ABIRIGA’s DEATH LEAVES MANY QUESTIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT
Saturday June 9, 2018
www.mknewslink.com
By Aiden Graw
In Kampala
Singer turned Politician and currently a Member of Parliament representing Kyandondo East Hon Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has called out the Government of Uganda to curb down the security crisis after the untimely murder of Hon. Col. Ibrahim Abiriga and his bodyguard that occurred Yesterday 8th June, 2018 in the evening hours.
Who Is Abriga?
For starters Col. Abriga was the current Arua Municipality Member of Parliament. He was born in 1956 from the West Nile region. In 1971, he joined the Uganda Army (UA) and mostly served as the Manager of Pakuba Lodge in the present-day Murchison Falls National Park. Like most of the ‘Amin soldiers’, after the overthrow of Iddi Amin in 1979, he fled to Congo and Sudan. In exile, they formed fighting groups to fight the new successive governments in Kampala. One such group was the UNRF under now Prime Minister, Gen. Moses Ali. Abiriga’s blood relative, Gen. Bamuze was the UNRF Chief of Staff.
Ibrahim Abiriga later joined the NRA in 1986 and rose to become the 2nd Division Administration Officer (DAO). He served in that position from 1988 to 1990 when his active military career informally ended.
A decade later, Ibrahim Abiriga contested for the Madi Okollo parliamentary seat but lost to the opposition candidate. Consequently, President Yoweri Museveni appointed Abiriga to the position of Resident District Commissioner (RDC) of Arua District. As RDC, he went to Adrava Health Centre at Rhino Camp and personally unplucked the campaign posters of an opposition candidate before harassing and accusing the health workers of ‘promoting the opposition’.
In 2014, Abiriga was transferred from Arua to Yumbe district as the RDC. However, in June 2015 he quit the position of RDC to run for Member of Parliament for Arua Municipality on the Museveni party ticket. He cited failure to serve people like he would have wished using the position of RDC. It is interesting to note that during his tenure as RDC, Abiriga would sometimes even challenge government programs that did not favour the local people.
In September 2015, Abiriga was suspiciously nominated by the EC not in Arua but in Kampala. However, a voter from Arua disputed his academic credentials by petitioning the Electoral Commission. It was alleged that Abiriga had only stopped in Primary Three. The above-mentioned education institutions denied ever enrolling a person in those names. In February 2016, the Electoral Commission (EC) disqualified him from contesting for the Arua Municipality. The EC’s decision reversed the District Returning Officer’s earlier decision that had nominated him. A week to the election day, Museveni ordered the Electoral Commission to reinstate Abiriga on the ballot paper.
Abiriga won the Arua Municipality seat but his opposition rival challenged his victory in court on grounds that the nomination forms that were used by the EC to declare him the winner were not the right ones and In June 2016, the EC in Arua ruled in favour of Abiriga. An appeal was lodged in the Court of Appeal but it was also dismissed in April 2017
Well yesterday, Hon. Ibrahim Abriga was shot dead in the company of his body guard as they drove in his yellow car a thing that has prompted Bobi Wine to appeal to the government once more to acknowledge that we have reached that point when we must have an honest conversation as a nation and find a way out of this crisis.
He went on to add that;
“No matter who we are and what our political persuasions are, no Ugandan should lose his or her life in this gruesome, senseless manner”
Source: www.mknewslink.com a greater western Uganda news website
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