Betty Amongi: Why I want to uproot Aceng from Lira

Gender minister Betty Amongi is relocating from Oyam South, where she has been an area MP under the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) since 2011, to Lira city to unseat her counterpart, health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, who is serving her first term as area Woman MP on the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ticket. New Vision spoke to Amongi on this and other related issues. Below are excerpts from the interview.

Why are you shifting to contest for the Lira city Woman MP seat?

First of all, we contest for a five-year term. So, I have been contesting in Oyam South for the directly-elected MP seat since 2011. I started with Apac district, which I represented as woman MP from 2001 to 2006. I was born in Oyam and in my culture, the children of another clan cannot grow up where I was born because they will not be entitled to what I own where I was born. So, since my children belong to another clan, and that is the socialisation of the African setting, you must raise them up to know where their home is.

And when you are a politician, you have to have a home, build a home and orient your home to your children and to everybody. I feel that it is time that I make my children know where their home is, where their roots are so that they grow up knowing where they are and myself to establish my home as a woman who is married and who must have a family where I am married.

Secondly, I am also married in a family where my husband holds the legacy of a former president and in my culture, when you are a woman, the responsibility of looking after a home rests on you, not so much on the man. And over this period, where I have been in Oyam, many people who have been coming from abroad or Kampala and going to Lira, have been making calls, asking, ‘Honourable, where are you? Are you at home? I want to reach where Dr Milton Obote’s home is.’ And I always ask my husband, ‘do they also call you?’ Very few call him. Why? Because they feel that a woman is the one who looks after a home.

So, for that responsibility in my culture, I would have left it to Maama Miria Kalule Obote, but she is now past 86 years and the people of Lango who still feel that that legacy must be kept, will now not look at her as the one looking after that home; they now look at me. So, to continue in Oyam will make it very difficult for me to continue, especially where Maama Miria is now aged and will not be able to continue to take care of that family.

I know that the responsibility rests on me and I cannot assume it from Oyam anymore, I have to go and assume it in Lira and protect that legacy because my children hold that legacy and that legacy has to be kept. So, I also go there as a family responsibility that rests on me as a woman married in that family.

You cannot assume that responsibility when you are not a Lira city Woman MP?

I do not necessarily need to do it when I am a Member of Parliament, but because I am already a leader in Lango and my leadership in that sub-region has not been found wanting. I feel that my leadership has offered a solution to some of the issues in the area. So, I will put my manifesto to the city that I am coming to shoulder this burden on your behalf as a people of this sub-region and on behalf of Uganda because the country itself should know that that is a very important legacy for Uganda; somebody (Milton Obote) who got the independence instrument of power in a country; that is an history that will never be erased, even if somebody wants to erase it, it will never be discarded.

The other day I was in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and as I was walking, someone said, ‘By the way, that is the daughter-in-law of Dr Apollo Milton Obote and his picture is there.’ And everyone around said, ‘Oh, let’s take you to where they founded the African Union.’

But you are seeking to dislodge a fellow cabinet minister?

The Electoral Commission, every after five years, is mandated to conduct elections and when it is conducting elections, it declares every constituency vacant, including for the President. So, there is nobody who holds a position except when they are elected and when you are elected, you are elected for a term of five years and you go back to seek election from the constituency.

The Bishop of Lira diocese, Sanctus Lino Wanok, speaking as Dr Aceng (left) and Amongi (right) listen during an event at St Peter’s Catholic Parish in Lira recently. Wanok urged the two ministers and their supporters to avoid politics of hatred and divisionism.

For me, as a political scientist, it is the people who make a decision.

Nobody has a constituency and I do not go there to dislodge anybody. It is the people who dislodge a politician; it is not an individual. So, if a minister or if a Member of Parliament for that area is popular, then she will not be dislodged by the people.

I am going to offer myself for the reasons I stated. The first reason is social. The second reason is the legacy issue and the third reason is that I have been a leader in that region even before I met my husband (Jimmy Akena, who is also the UPC president and Lira East Division MP).

Citizens think that it is a battle for supremacy in Lira between you and Dr Aceng?

Not at all. I do not seek to be supreme in any matter. As a political scientist, I seek to serve people. Because we are both MPs, we are both ministers, the only issue is that unfortunately we find ourselves seeking election in the same area. The most fortunate thing is the people will decide, not the two of us.

The race has become fierce and recently, your internal affairs counterpart, Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, asked you to stay away from contesting for Lira city. What is your comment on this?

Fortunately, all of us are politicians, including Gen. Otafiire. And unfortunately, all of us know that it is the people who decide, not a speech of any sort that decides.

Internal affairs minister Kahinda Otafiire campaigning for Aceng in Lira city in January.

But for me, I do not stop anybody from giving their opinion about this race or from voicing their opinion on why I am going there because the Constitution gives them freedom of speech. What is important is that the people are going to decide.

Did your husband (Jimmy Akena) consult you before declaring his interest in running for the country’s presidency in 2026?

He does not need to consult me, but he told me he is going to consult for the purpose of being elected as the UPC president because in UPC, you have to be the party president and the flagbearer.

So, he must first get both the two and his first issue as of now is mobilising to be the party president of UPC and telling the people that if he achieves that, he will also want to be given the flag [for the 2026 election]. So, I told him the most important thing is to focus on mobilising UPC party members to support him as party president and later as flag-bearer.

How do you describe your husband as a person?

As a person, he is very intelligent, but very reserved. He is also a very generous person and I see most of the money he earns from Parliament goes to helping others.

He can give everything he has and remain with nothing. Sometimes I look at him and get amazed because his politics is modern.

His politics is not extreme, and it is because he was shaped by his (father’s) background. Staying with his father shaped his ideology. He is not moved by having material things. He is more concerned with people and humanity than accumulating wealth for himself.

What has kept your marriage strong?

I think it is because for both of us, we have understood each other that first we are politicians and we do not need to ask each other, where have you been for the last two days? Where have you been for the last two weeks? I think that has helped me because on my side, I know that as a politician, I am able to go abroad for one week and I know that I am doing the work.

So, even when he disappears and he is doing his political work, no suspicion comes to me because the same scenario happens to me. And I think my ideology as a woman is not to have control over a man; it is to realise that we are partners. Our marriage is first based on discussing issues of society.

How is it like to always sit on opposite sides in Parliament for you and your husband?

But that is politics; Parliament is not our home. In Parliament, we are pursuing a public life and we discuss and agree on what to do while there. If there is something on the Order Paper, I tell him, ‘Eh, today I might fire you! (laughs).

And also, when he sees something on the Order Paper, he says, ‘I’m putting you on notice. Today, I am going to fire your boss, meaning the President (laughs). I say okay. Let me go and sit and listen.

I think the most important thing is when you are speaking, you are not doing so to undermine each other, you are doing what you are doing for the public good. I have also respected him, that I am a minister, yet I have not left his party. So, he also recognises that if this woman was big headed, she would have crossed by now.

There are many people who were appointed and they crossed to NRM. But also, to respect him, I said I will not cross, but I will do work which even if you are President tomorrow, I will still do it for you or for the country.

How have you found working with President Yoweri Museveni?

I think President Museveni is a very tolerant leader. Sometimes I sit and look at the issues that he has to contend with every day; I think his level of tolerating people is very high.

What struck you immediately about the Cabinet when you entered it for the first time?

Sitting with President Museveni on the same table and seeing him chairing the meeting, expecting me to be the lead in that sector and telling him and the entire Cabinet what needs to be done for this country Uganda. So, it struck me to understand that oh, this is how governance is.

What was your life changing moment?

Wow, I think my life changing moment was when I passed A’level very well in 1995. When the results came, I was told you have been admitted to Makerere University on government sponsorship and so, you are not going to pay anything.

That was a life changing moment for me because I was going to study to be a nun yet I was somebody who was from a very poor family.

Both my deceased parents were primary school teachers.

How poor was your family?

Describing poverty is very difficult.

Of course, we did not go barefoot to school, but my parents could not afford what I needed to study comfortably. At times I had to go with half of the school fees and half a bar of soap and my parents would bring the rest maybe on the visitation day. Pocket money was a luxury and I rarely went with it to school. Most times my father would take me to school on a bicycle because we could not afford to be transported with a vehicle to reach the school and in any case, at that time, transport in the villages to school was also very rare.

I think Museveni is a very tolerant leader. Sometimes I sit and look at the issues that he has to contend with every day; his level of tolerating people is very high.

What Aceng said

When we broke this story last year, Aceng said: “Neither does Amongi’s coming to Lira city nor does her being loaded with money scare me. I have served my constituency for three years with great impact. I believe that the people of Lira city see and compare the three years in Parliament of Aceng and five terms in Parliament of Among.”

Asked what she thinks could be the genesis of this latest political rivalry between her and Amongi, the health minister said: “I don’t know the reason why Amongi took a decision to come to Lira city in the middle of the five years when she still has a running social contract to serve the electorate of Oyam South.”

She added: “I have been hearing her that she is coming to contest against me because I told the President in a meeting that in 2021, I chased the UPC from the city and pushed her husband, the UPC party president, Akena, to the periphery of the town.”