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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
OBONGI: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2025
The residents of Obongi district in North western Uganda have marked with night-long celebration, the nomination of Kaps Hassan Fungaroo, the former Member of Parliament and the Vice president of the Forum for Democratic Change as he plots a comeback to legislative duty.
From the time of declaration of his nomination as parliamentary candidate at 4:45pm on Wednesday, a festive atmosphere ensued in the small Obongi town as crows celebrated like the elections were already won.
Dancing through the streets, they sung local songs in praise of the opposition firebrand whose previous 15-year stint between 2006 and 2021 ushered in the modern day status of Obongi.
So, socked were the police by the turn of events, that they dashed to erect two roadblocks to prevent the crowd from entering the town centre from the nomination center but in a small urban centre where all the residents know each other well, no-one felt bothered.
“I actually thank the police for taking note of the momentum of the people of Obongi. Last time they were robbed of their victory in broad day-light and now they have begun the process to reclaim their power back,” Fungaroo said.
Fungaroo had claimed without adducing evidence that the reported “electoral robbery” was sponsored and orchestrated by nomadic pastoralists from western Uganda with whom he had run-ins during his previous stint in Parliament.
The nomads are still roaming around in the district and during his campaign rally in Obongi last week, President Yoweri Museveni described them as “undisciplined cattle keepers who came to disturb you here.”
“If they were listening, there should be no reason for them to come and disturb you here,” said Museveni at Obongi district boma grounds as he proceeded to give example of one disciplined cattle keeper called Matovu who is living a settle live 70 kilometre off-road in Western Uganda and is getting sh21m monthly from selling milk.
Fungaroo said that his priority will be to advocate for better housing for the police in Obongi so that they operate from comfortable residence.
He also said the Judiciary needs to establish a home in Obongi district in order to allow easy access of justice by the residents.
The opposition firebrand explained that what will determine the outcome of the elections in Obongi will be the desire to reverse retrogression of critical areas for service delivery and development such as the district budget that has steeply dropped leaving civil servants demoralized.
“As more things are becoming desirable, there is need for education, schools have to be built (primary, secondary and tertiary institutions), and teachers’ houses need to be constructed. This is what is called development,” he explained.
Fungaroo added: “People are now living in computer age but here in Obongi were no internet connectivity, these telephone networks need to be improved. All our roads are in terrible state.”
But instead of increasing as Obondi was lifted from a County to a district, the budget nosedived from sh42 billion in 2020/2021 Financial Year to sh16by in currently.
“The question is Obongi are you developing as you wanted?” he asked to a nooo! Chorus answer from the crowd.
Fungaro reminded the people that before he joined politics in 2006, there were Members of Parliament from Obongi but what they did at best was to keep the dreams of Obongi people alive.
But when he became the Member of Parliament, he galvanized the people and turned those dreams in to tangible development.
“This is how we got the ferry to connect to Sinyanya, this is how we got these roads, and this is how we got the district. We used to have annual Obongi day where high level dignitaries in government would come and lecture to us matters of development. Is Obongi Day there now? No.”
“So, I am coming back to reorganize our development strategy and close the leadership gap. I want to bring everybody together, the Obongi sons and daughters in diaspora and the Obongi people back at home. You saw that though I was in opposition political party I worked very well with the government. I was shadow minister for defence I worked to make sure the conditions under which the security forces live were improved,” asserted Fungaroo.
He elaborated that the Obongi people need to be connected to the rest of Uganda though good roads and after getting a district, the people need a district hospital.
Fungaroo said it is useless to employ competent engineers and doctors but then cut off the budget they need to do work so that the people would see their relevance.
