Madi, Acholi leader asks 1,000 residents to vacate Apaa land

Madi Paramount Chief Stephen Izakare Drani has asked more than 1,000 residents in the contested Apaa area to consider voluntary relocation to settle on alternative areas of land that the chiefdom has prepared for them.
In an interview with Monitor yesterday, Mr Drani, without stating the size of the land and its location, said the chiefdom wants to save its subjects from becoming victims of criminality and the possible government’s forceful eviction.

Mr Drani said a huge fraction of the chiefdom’s subjects were risking their lives by continuing to live in protected (gazetted) areas liable to evictions, and that criminal elements from other parts of the country and outside the country had been identified to be mixing with them within the Zoka area.
He said the chiefdom has got information on alleged criminals whose origins have been traced to the DR Congo, Rwanda, among other areas, who are currently mixing with his subjects while plotting crimes to destabilise the country.

“… and these are potentially bad people, and you know what happens in terms of national security, and that is why we are hastening to offer our people alternatives before things get out of hand.”
“We have spoken to other chiefs to establish vacant land to settle them. We don’t want our people to be mixing with other wrong elements who are threatening the country’s security,” Mr Drani said.
When asked about the size and location of the relocation zone, Mr Drani said: “It is not about how big the land is, it is about the people, getting them to be interested in relocation other than settling in gazetted areas. For us here in Madi, we know where our land is.”

The cultural institution, together with its counterparts of the Acholi chiefdom, has already formed peace committees and trained 50 members who are now sensitising the affected encroachers to voluntarily vacate Zoka central forest reserve and East Madi wildlife reserve.
This newspaper established that the members of the peace committee are tasked with the responsibility of identifying wrongdoers and perpetrators of land conflicts in the community, as well as reporting the culprits to the relevant authorities.
 
Security threat
In November last year, security officials from Adjumani and Amuru districts expressed concerns over heightened insecurity and the presence of none Ugandans, who are illegally living in the Apaa and Zoka areas.
On December 29, Mr Drani and his Acholi counterpart David Onen Acana II visited Apaa and held a community engagement during which they rallied the communities living in the area to desist from violence by embracing peaceful co-existence.
The two cultural leaders said the office of the President had endorsed their proposal to find local solutions to end rampant clashes in Apaa and Zoka areas.

It is also established that up to 36 illegal lower administrative units (villages) have been formed in Apaa and Zoka areas in Itirikwa Sub-county, Adjumani District.
The existence and operation of the illegal villages were discovered by a team of cultural leaders, who are currently carrying out dialogue meetings to foster peace between the Madi and Acholi communities.
In August, President Museveni gave the two cultural institutions Shs100 million each as facilitation to spearhead the peace restoration process in Apaa.
Although they found that Apaa is currently secured by the UPDF and the police deployed in five detachments of Apaa and Zoka, clashes have continued between the two tribes.