Related Articles
BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
MADI-OKOLLO: MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2025
By 9:00am on Monday, Alice Candiru, a person with disabilities in Madi-Okollo district was already at the gates of the Ajai sports stadium
This was in anticipation of President Yoweri Museveni’s visit to canvas for votes ahead of next year’s elections.
While thankful to the president for the special grant for persons with disability (PWD), Emyooga and devoting 10% of the, Candiru expected that the NRM presidential candidate would address a number of issues that are pertinent to her and PWDs.
These are construction of a rehabilitation center, a school for the deaf and blind, recruitment of special needs teachers and sign language translators.
She also expected Museveni to address the lack of special delivery room for mothers with disability at the health facilities equipped with adjustable delivery beds, wheel chairs and sight and hearing aids in Madi-Okollo,.
Candiru disclosed in an interview that she feels perturbed to see mother suffer in the process of bringing new life into the nation, something that often causes her to reflect back on the bygone years when she delivered two children while on the run in the bush during the insurgency years following the violent ouster of former president Idi Amin.
“I was helped by an old woman because there were no nurses or midwives in the bush. The other two children I delivered them at Arua hospital after we the wars, but Arua hospital is 40 mile away from here,” Candiru explained.
She asserted that after almost 40 years of NRM in power, the conditions under which women with disabilities should go to labor should be improved.
She also called on the government to increase the 10% PDM allocation, improve connectivity through community access roads and station standby ambulances at health units to answer distress calls from Mothers with disability.
President Museveni was in high spirits as he pitched to the crowd but made no direct pledges to Candiru’s specific asks.
However, his comprehensive speech summarized in general the achievements of the NRM government highlighting three out of what he said are seven milestones and recommitted himself to expand on the achievements in next government.
“The first achievement is peace so that there is no war and there is harmony,” stated President Museveni.
“You people who live in West Nile, you know what peace is. You were refugees in Sudan and Congo (Zaire), now you are talking of refugees here. It is because there is peace in Uganda and where those refugees are coming from there is no peace,” he said.
Museveni underlined that it was not by accident that NRM brought peace but it was on account of rejecting the politics of sectarianism, religious chauvinism and identity that the government created a disciplined army and stabilized the country.
On the economic infrastructure, Museveni cited construction of roads, electricity, piped water and expansion of the telephone infrastructure.
“When I come to Madi Okollo and I see electricity poles, I feel happy. And all of you are holding mobile phones. Even though we did not have money, we managed to reach with road tarmacking from Kampala to Oraba at the South Sudan border,” he said.
Museveni assured the people that the Panyimur-Pakwach-Wadelai-Rhino Camp road will be tarmacked in the 2026/2027 financial year.
He said this will improve road network, adding to the Atyak-Adjumani-Moyo-Yumbe-Koboko road which is being worked on and the Nebbi-Paidha-Warr-Vurra road that also will be tarmacked.
He tasked the two road equipment points in Arua and Moyo to make sure they rehabilitate the trunk roads and highways to provide for seamless traffic of goods and people.
Turning to social infrastructure, Museveni said Madi Okollo has 69 government primary schools and eight government secondary schools.
He however noted that due to poor planning by technocrats, 14 out of 46 parishes in Madi-Okollo do not have a primary school.
The standing government policy is that every parish should have a primary school, every sub county should have a secondary school and every constituency should have a polytechnic or vocational training school.
Museveni disclosed that the government was addressing the situation through construction of a seed secondary school and six primary schools which leaves five parishes still pending.
He promised that his next government will ensure complete implementation of the education infrastructure in Madi-okollo.
He advised the people to utilize the presidential skilling center in Zombo district, saying that its purpose is to provide skills to school dropouts in West Nile.
Museveni sounded a warning to the school administrators in the universal primary education schools, telling them to stop imposing extra charges on pupils and thereby jeopardizing the government’s free education policy.
The president said the problem is that people get confused when government undertakes a development infrastructure program in their area.
“At night you do not sleep on tarmac road. You go into your house and you will find that the poverty you left in the morning is waiting for you there,” he said.
“You don’t have sugar, you don’t have clothes for children, you don’t have a good house, you don’t eat meat that is why you are poaching from the game reserve; you don’t eat eggs, you don’t drink milk because you don’t have money,” Museveni elaborated.
He clarified that while development is for everybody, household wealth is for individuals, families or companies.
Museveni emphasized that this is the reason the government created avenues to send funding to communities such as the NAADS, Operation wealth creation and the parish development model that has so far supported 13,000 families with a total of sh14b in Madi Okollo.
He said the government will add sh100m under PDM to Madi Okollo in the next financial year plush sh15m for the local leaders Savings and credit cooperative organization.
Another SACCO will be created and capitalized for the religious leaders and cultural leaders.
“We don’t want to leave some people behind,” said President Museveni.
