Mr Samuel Odonga- Otto, the Member of Parliament (MP) representing Aruu County in Pader district has called on the youth in Acholi sub region to produce more children in order to protect their land against government agents.
The Aruu MP noted that, “For the Acholi people to keep away land grabbers and the government, we should multiply rapidly in order to keep them off.”
In a press briefing in Gulu town on Monday, the legislator said, “Acholi still has a huge chunk of land, the size of Belgium.”
He said for his part, he has already produced six children and asked healthy youth to at least have eight as a minimum.
According to Otto, a household in Acholi can have up to 35 acres of land.
The legislator said the question now should not be whether Acholi are using their land extensively or not but to improve population density by producing children in order to solve the problem of open space which could attract interest from selfish ‘investors’
He adds that, “Having a big population will also deal with the problem of reckless sale of land by youth just for betting and buying motorcycles for boda-boda taxis.”
This Otto said will cause landlessness in the future.
He asked government to halt land grabbing saying Acholi sub region needs about thirty years to recover after the violence caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency which drove around 1.8 million people into the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.
The current population of the Acholi People is estimated to be around 600,000, or 4 per cent of the 35 million people.
Mr Reagan Okumu, the Chairman Acholi Parliamentary Group (APG) noted that what is bringing the problem to the communities in Acholi is that 26 percent of land in Acholi is arable.
He said, “Unlike other regions such as Kigezi and Rwenzori, it is only in Acholi where machines such as tractors and can be used to open land because of its terrain besides its richness in fertility.”
Mr Lyandro Komakech, a Senior Researcher at Refugee Law Project, of Makerere University explains that, “As a result of camp life for over 15 years. There are those whose parents died in the camp, therefore has not been clear streamlined process of return to the extent that boundary demarcations of cultural land has not been done.”
He said, “This has caused a lot of commotion and problems in the villages.
In April this year, Lands Minister Daudi Migereko who was in Gulu challenged leaders from Acholi on educating the resettling communities on how best the abundant land can be put into better use.
Minister Migereko was responding to numerous allegations by legislators from Acholi sub region who accused government of planning to grab land in Apaa, Achol- Pii, Lakang and Kololo.
2 Comments
Odonga,omera! let me hope that these are not your words my brother! Acholis are today breeding like rats yet they lack basic capacity to take care of their children. you should instead advise acholis to put their land into good use other than propagating for a rapid expansion of acholi population, lumero, lukwoo,malayi ki lugooba will never protect acholi land
For 29 years,some of Acholi Children and Youth statistics remained unaccounted back Home.majority have considered not to return on their Customary Land.Although we have tried to make them aware of the Value of favoring spending Holidays in Acholi Region and Talking in broken Acholi Language .Tizze,I acknowledged that Hon MP Odonga’s project of Human Resources(Nywalo lotino ki bot Vulu waa pi dongo Lobo Acholi pire tek ngat ma dagi nongo too ma otime i Dye Abila pa Acholi pe i ot wu) Finally,In decades later we will achieve greatly increased man’s knowledge of the Universe.