Over 500 Local Leaders in Omoro District Local Government including the Local Councilors Ones (LC Is), Local Council Twos (LC IIs), Local Councilors Threes (LC IIIs) up to Local Councilors Fives (LCV), and the civil servant or the technocrats are all camped at Northern Uganda Youth Development Centre in Labora Sub-county, Omoro district.
They are camped for a leadership retreat or ideological clinic organized by Catherine Lamwaka, the Omoro Woman Member of Parliament, and managed by Okello Douglas Peter Okao the LCV Chairperson, Omoro District Local Government. The retreat is being facilitated by Uganda People’s Defense Forces in the Fourth Division as part of the exercise and military drill, coupled with other professional external facilitators, and the participants were already briefed by Minister of Local Government, Raphael Magyezi on January,4th 2024 who discussed and highlighted development happening at the Ministry of Local Government where a majority of the participants operate.
The leadership ideological training themed “Unlocking the potential of Omoro District for Socio-Economic Transformation “started on January 3rd and is ending on January 10th, 2024 from Northern Uganda Youth Development Centre in Labora Sub-county, Omoro District.
NRM SG Challenged Omoro Leaders on Exemplary Leadership:
Todwong Richard, the Secretary General of the National Resistance Movement told the leaders that they should be exemplary to the people they lead because the seriosity of a leader is measured first by how he or she behaves or appears right from their homestead.
He said the Councilors should ensure the Local Council is active and vibrant for better security where a Local Councilor knows all the visitors and settlers in his or her village.
“Use this training to mirror your life and immediately abandon the bad things you have been doing after this retreat”. Todwong added.
Todwong who was opening the retreat officially used the opportunity to alert the leaders that the National Resistance Movement Party is there to stay and told the participants that if they have a family member or their friends who thinks the NRM is going by the wind to forget.
“Continue voting NRM because if you vote opposition, you will spoil the coordination of work, hence if you only have NRM leaders is easier to lobby for anything from government”. Todwong submitted.
Todwong used Acoli language throughout his session for his message to stick to the participants and regularly kept calling the participants on stage to practically demonstrate how governance works and how multi-party systems operate best if a dominant party like NRM has leaders right from the grassroots to the top.
Okello Douglas Peter Okao, the Omoro District Chairperson said the district leadership is united and is using the training to strengthen their unity at all levels of the district.
Audio File one: Omoro District Chairperson on strength -Eng
Lamwaka Catherine, the Omoro woman member of parliament who doubles as the chief convener of the ideological cadre training told The Elephant that mindset change remained one of the biggest challenges in the post-war conflict Northern Uganda as far as government programs are concerned inclusive of Omoro people and was the biggest drive behind her motivation to organize the ideological clinic.
Audile File two: Omoro Woman Mp talking on why the training-Eng
Catherine Lamwaka also talked about the gaps the training is addressing and the expectations of the training camp on the leaders.
Audio File three: Mp Lamwaka on gaps and expectations-Eng
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