Obongi: MP Fungaroo under siege

Constituency to watch: Obongi (Moyo District)

Current MP: Hassan Kaps Fungaroo (FDC)
Contestants: Pataki Amasi, Gregory Drale, Stephen Dima (all NRM)

He burst into national elective politics as a minnow. However, a mix of an opposition ‘tsunami’ aided by real or perceived failings of the incumbent in 2006 birthed Hassan Kaps Fungaroo as Member of Parliament for Obongi constituency in Moyo, one of the 17 districts of Uganda at independence.

Mr Fungaroo, 32, defeated an avid supporter of the ruling NRM party, Pataki Amasi, who had represented the rural constituency in Parliament for a decade. Mr Amasi is planning a re-bound.

Like many colleagues from northern Uganda, voters may have overwhelmingly ticked Mr Fungaroo because his image on the ballot paper was etched besides the figure of a key, the symbol of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.

The greater north has churned out three Presidents – Milton Obote, Idi Amin and Tito Okello Lutwa – but sections of the population believe they lost opportunities when the men were violently ousted. Successor regimes were often perceived as seeking revenge, leaving residents indignant.

However, in the past five years, certain crucial campaign variables have shifted and the political contour re-configured, if not complicated. For instance, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) war that devastated the region and made the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party unpopular is virtually over.

Most IDP camps have been dismantled; the majority of the displaced persons are back home and busy opening up gardens and harvesting big from near-virgin soils.

The new fortune is making greater north more hopeful after decades of despair. Area politicians who rose to fame by criticising, maybe even demonising, President Museveni’s government based on the atrocities of the LRA war appear disarmed by the military victory over the insurgents.

With the insurgency behind, individual politicians in the region will most likely win or lose the 2011 ballot on individual merit or the charm of their local development blueprint – a drift from expired dividend of rhetoric and party affiliation.

Although the primary role of an MP is to legislate, voters expect them to deliver more; lobby government, private sector partners and international friends to support development projects.

Electoral demands
In Obongi, which is roughly 65 kilometres from Moyo District headquarters, residents’ overarching desire is to get a leader who can persuade the government to grant the constituency of an estimated 130, 000 people, district status.

“The people of Obongi are very desperate for a district because they want services brought nearer to them,” says Mr Ssebi Idraku, the LC I chairman of Obongi Town East cell.
“When civil servants from Moyo District headquarters are transferred here, they take it as punishment because of the hardships in Obongi. ”

The lamentations by the local council official, an NRM supporter, mirrors the frustrations of most residents over government’s failure to offer basic services.

The constituency has no electricity; no tarmac road, posts human development indicators worse than the national averages and suffers perennial outbreak of epidemics, particularly cholera and cryptococcal meningitis.

Most educational institutions in the area are collapsing following withdrawal of UNHCR assistance in the wake of the repatriation of thousands of Sudanese refugees, then majority students in the area.

Obongi SS, the only government secondary school in the constituency, had no O-level student passing in Division One or Two in the Uganda Certificate of Education examinations results released last week, Mr Mike Otte, the head teacher, said.

But not all hope is lost. A newly-built government health centre IV in the area with a resident doctor has enabled minor surgery procedures to be carried from within.

MP Fungaroo speaks of lobbying for piped water supply, which is now flowing in the trading centre, as well as the ongoing upgrading of the jagged Obongi-Moyo Town road to standard gravel compaction, at Shs4 billion.

Improvement work on the Obongi-Kulikulinga Road connecting to Yumbe District is due to start and residents want a new road opened to link the constituency via Rhino Camp to Pakwach Town in Nebbi District and onwards to Kampala. If done, experts say time to ply the current estimated 285-kilometre Obongi to Pakwach stretch via Yumbe, Koboko and Arua districts would be cut by half.

“My people require a ferry to cross River Nile from Obongi Go-down to Sinyanya landing site in Adjumani District,” says Mr Fungaro whose aggressive lobbying has seen him court Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, deputy Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and Ministers; Kahinda Otafiire (Trade) and his junior Gagawala Wambuzi to visit and experience firsthand the tribulations of his constituents.

Maj. Gen. Otafiire, sapped by the long and rough drive, said – perhaps in jest – that he thought he was in “another country” when he reached Obongi. While Ms Kadaga, who visited earlier, on government behalf apologised publicly both in Obongi and later in Kampala over the county’s deplorable infrastructure.

Mr Fungaroo said: “I brought the high-ranking government officials to see for themselves why I am in the opposition because when I criticise government, they think we just hate President Museveni.”

However, Mr Fungaroo’s opponents in the NRM are not happy and worry his hobnobbing with the ruling party’s key executives and achievements would work to their disadvantage.

The developments - among them erection of a community resource centre and piped water supply at Obongi headquarters - would etch the opposition politician in voters’ minds and make his removal in subsequent ballots difficult.

This disillusionment last year culminated in the NRM-dominated Moyo District council voting to block a previously approved Shs200 million part-funding under the Peace, Recovery and Development Programme to roof the resource centre structure heavily subsidised by the UN refugee agency as a ‘thank you’ to the community for hosting Sudanese refugees.

The structure is planned to have a public library, Internet café, conference hall, recreation grounds. And this would be the first time the area is having such facilities.

NRM ideologues reportedly also ganged up to sabotage President Museveni’s initially confirmed visit to Obongi together with his South Sudan counterpart Salva Kiir, both of whom Mr Fungaroo had invited to the October 23 Obongi Day celebrations. The ceremony was intended to formally bid farewell to departing Sudanese refugees.
Sabotage?
On September 24, the schemers organised an alternative event at Moyo Town to which they revived the previous invitation to the two Presidents and they turned up. However, Mr Fungaroo, who says he sunk a lot of money in organising the follow up function, was sidelined and never allowed to speak or present his constituents’ memorandum prepared for the earlier occasion.
Now three people; Mr Amasi, one Gregory Drale, a teacher at Alere SS in the neighbouring Adjumani District and athlete Stephen Dima, are reportedly all jostling to take on Mr Fungaroo in 2011 on NRM ticket.

We were unable to reach Mr Amasi, who served in both the 6th and 7th Parliament, for comment. The LC III chairman of Itula Sub-county, Sunday Adrawa, who was Mr Amasi’s campaign manager in 2006, said on Tuesday that residents were likely to vote for President Museveni more generously in the next ballot but almost certainly to return Mr Fungaroo whom he described as an “effective mobiliser.”

“This man (Fungaroo) is tough-talking; he knows lobbying and advocacy and is frequently here with the electorate,” said Mr Adrawa, adding: “I am an NRM supporter but that is Mr Fungaroo’s true character.”

FDC has since named him as the deputy secretary for mobilisation/organisation in charge northern Uganda, an assignment he juggles with that of Shadow Minister for the Presidency.

Some government officials however seem jittery about his influence. Early last year, Mr Fungaroo narrowly survived arrest after Arua Resident District Commissioner Ibrahim Abiriga, accused him of allegedly enlisting some 250 youths from Obongi and Yumbe to replenish the LRA.

President Museveni, during a meeting with legislators from West Nile region on September 11, last year also raised questions about MP Fungaroo’s perceived suspicious closer link with the Khartoum government. Mr Museveni reportedly asked Mr Fungaroo: “Where did you know those Arabs from?”
Whatever the ominous import, the lawmaker is self-assured he will win the next ballot unless it is rigged. “The government officials think that the pillar of opposition in Moyo, Yumbe and Adjumani Districts is me; that why they are scared and sabotaging my development initiatives and plotting my arrest,” said Mr Fungaroo, “The people of Obongi need me and I need them and I am here for them.”

2006 MP RESULTS
Fungaroo Kaps Hassan 3,538
Ajiga Abdul 902

Amasi Pataki 1,792
Swadik Abas Abdisud 1,732

Registered voters 12,061

Valid votes 7,852