National Resistance Movement (NRM) leaders in Madi Okollo District of West Nile are bitter following reports that politicians infiltrated the party register update process, and planted ghost voters, in order to influence results from the upcoming internal party primaries.
On 29th January 2025, the ruling National Resistance Movement started updating its register ahead of party primaries slated for this year. During the exercise which ran up to February 1st, 2025, the registers were sent to 72,000 villages across the country for display and new members had to register but also verify their eligibility to participate in internal elections.
However, the exercise has not been short of irregularities and some NRM leaders from West Nile are bitter. For instance, a report for Anyiribu Subcounty indicates that registered voters are far higher than the total population, which is likely to cause confusion. In the report, the NRM administrator, Mr Arionzi Patrick also cites cases where politicians developed their own registers causing confusion to the whole process.
Mr Arionzi highlights villages in Upper Madi- Okollo whose register books came with no names, and “after consultations” it was agreed that the village registrars write new members. This, he says, was the opportunity the politicians exploited to inflate the registers with ghosts. The villages according to Mr Arionzi include: Adroyi village in Yachi Parish (Ogokose Subcounty), Olyevu village in Olyevu Parish (Pawor Subcounty), Arasi village in Yilli Parish (Anyiribu Subcounty), and Okubu village in Oribu (Offaka Subcounty).
For example; Anyiribu Subcounty which has four parishes (Bondo, Yili, Omii, and Ayuu) with a total population of 4344 voters yet the updated figures indicate a total of 9008 voters – double the actual figures.
Former MP Madi Okollo county, Hon Martin Andi Drito expressed concern over these irregularities saying it has triggered serious concerns among NRM leaders especially as they prepare for elections.
“It is difficult to believe that Anyiribu Subcounty which traditionally has the lowest number of voters can beat the bigger subcounties including Offaka Subcounty. These irregularities are not good and investigations must be do ensure proper records as we head to elections” Mr Drito stated.
The area Member of Parliament, Isaac Etuke also shared similar concerns that manipulating the NRM register will create unnecessary confusion and he appealed to the leadership in Kampala to intervene into the matter.
The NRM leaders also accuse Mr Milton Anguyo who serves as NRM registrar for Anyiribu county, for conniving with politicians to add more members in the party register. When we reached out to Mr Anguyo Milton for a comment, he declined claiming that only his superiors can speak about the matter.
Madi-Okollo received a total of 25.9million for the register update exercise which the leaders say was spent according to the guidelines from the NRM Secretariat in Kampala. The report however highlights funding challenges considering the large size of Madi-Okollo with hard-to-reach areas especially Ewanga Subcounty which is only be accessible from Yumbe District. It is also noted that facilitation for supervisors of the exercise was not enough considering the wider area they had to cover.
The report recommends that the materials for such an exercise should be thoroughly verified before leaving the party headquarters in order to avoid confusion and conflicts within party members. They also appealed for increased funding for such activities as certain officers had no facilitation for transport including NRM office administrators and local leaders in branch structures.
