Dear President Museveni,
It was very thoughtful of you to personally attend the funeral of Mzee Anania Akera in Omoro District.
He was a person you considered not only your friend, a peacemaker and progressive leader, but also a respected elder in Acholi. Another such elder and your friend is in Apac District.
Mzee Charles Olet Owiny is 82 years old and still in good health, but if he were to pass on now, he would die bitter with the ruling NRM government, which he supports enthusiastically.
Mzee Olet is a businessman and veteran of the 1979 liberation war in which you also fought (he was in Kikosi Maalum) and quit the army the moment Amin was overthrown. He was among the first leaders to embrace the NRM when it came to power in 1986 and dissuaded many youths in the area from joining the rebellion.
At the height of the huge incursion into Apac District by the Karimojong cattle rustlers in 1987, NRA battalion commanded by Sam Kaka (now in Rwanda) and later Andrew Gutti (now Lieutenant General) was based in Apac Town. The NRA lacked transport to move troops to confront cattle rustlers.
It asked for the help of the local business community and Mzee Olet easily mobilised vehicles, including his own, Tata lorry to ferry troops. On July 15, 1987, the NRA attacked the cattle rustlers and recovered more than 7,000 head of cattle at Nambieso in Apac.
As they fled in a fit of desperation that day, the cattle rustlers found Mzee Olet’s lorry the army had parked by the roadside and burnt it. The army then promised to compensate Mzee Olet with another lorry, but 32 years down the road, nothing has happened!
The Defence ministry on many occasions told Olet that since the President promised during one of the public rallies in Apac that Olet will be compensated, it is President’s Office to handle it.
Mzee Olet says in 2018 your new Director General of ISO, Col Frank Bagyenda Kaka sent a senior officer who again collected his documents for possible compensation. He is hoping that this time something will come out of it.
He was told that Maj. Gen Fred Toolit, the Defence Adviser at the Uganda High Commission in South Africa this time wrote a cover letter to you backing his compensation since he was the Division Intelligence Officer in Lira when the event occurred.
Mzee Olet says he does not want a replica brand new Tata lorry, but a good used Japanese-made truck can do to help him in the evening of his life.
Every election cycle he is ridiculed for “supporting those who can’t even pay back your lorry”.
Mr President, this old supporter of yours needs to be compensated. Thirty-two years is never too late! You can talk to him and calm him down.
Your network of government officials can give you his phone number which I also have but cannot put here because con men will start harassing him promising to process his claim.
Statehouse sources have indicated that Museveni was shocked that his promises 32 years down the roads are not yet fulfilled.
Museveni was bitter due to the fact that his critics will use ”This Misunderstanding” to discredit achievements reached on by the NRM government
The letter according to Museveni critics have exposed Musevni’s failure for the last 32 years, whereby his officials are only interested in swindling funds and can not compensate those who lost properties during NRA war
