NRM unveils Oulanyah’s son as official candidate to replace former Speaker, Museveni vows to make cattle rustlers lose appetite for guns, 3 road accidents place deaths at 10 per day over the last week, Tanzania president calls night meeting, orders for immediate solution to rising commodity prices

The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party on Friday unveiled Andrew Ojok Oulanyah as the party flagbearer in the race to replace former Omoro Member of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah, who died in March. Party Secretary General Richard Todwong was at Opit Senior Secondary School playgrounds in Opit Upper village, Omoro Town Council, Omoro County in Omoro District where he met the district party structures to set the tone for the party’s mobilization, sensitization and assessment of salient issues. Elections will be held later this month. Ojok Oulanyah is the eldest son of the former Speaker, who represented Omoro in Parliament in the 9th, 10th and 11th Parliament.  

President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to make cattle rustlers in Karamoja ‘lose appetite’ for the gun by building and equipping a stronger guard force at Labwordong in Agago district. Speaking on May 4th, shortly after passing out 2,610 Local Defence Personnel intake who have been undergoing training at the Labwordwong Training School in Agago district, President Museveni said the cattle rustling that has re-emerged in the region will stop. “We had removed the 5th division for training, and they took advantage of that. But now we have brought it back. It will help make the rustlers lose appetite for the gun,” he said.

Over the last two years, the nine districts of Karamoja, in Northeastern Uganda have experienced episodes of instability that has disrupted more than a decade of peace after the army disarmed gun-wielding rustlers in the early 2000s. Raiders have returned, killing many people and stealing the cattle that are their livelihoods. A fresh disarmament campaign, launched by the army in July 2021, has so far failed to stem the violence, while drawing allegations of human rights abuses.

Traffic police statistics released last week indicate that 118 people were killed in road crashes between April 24 and May 4 this year. Daily Monitor reports that the 10-day road crash deaths translate into about 12 people losing their life every day. 

Of these road deaths, 28 people died on the same day on May 4 after a Link bus plunged into a tea garden in Fort Portal on its way to Kampala and others died in a crash that involved three vehicles on Mbale-Tirinyi road in Eastern Uganda. The Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Faridah Nampiima, the spokesperson of the traffic police, explains that 23 people died on two public holidays namely International Labour Day on May 1, and Eid on May 2.

Tanzania’s President Samia Hassan held an emergency meeting of her cabinet on Sunday night over price hikes of fuel in the country. The country’s energy regulator, Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority last week announced record high fuel prices.

The cabinet meeting in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam was attended by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, the ministers of energy and finance, among others.

“The president directed those present to find an immediate solution to the rising fuel prices in the country,” the president’s office said in a statement.

South Sudan’s health ministry has declared a cholera outbreak in Rubkona county in the northern oil-producing Unity state. A total of 31 cases, including one death, have been reported from Rubkona town and Bentiu camp for the internally displaced persons (IDP), it said. Samples taken to the national public health laboratory in the capital, Juba, returned positive tests.