20 Reasons Why Betty Amongi Will Struggle to win Lira City

Speaker Anita Among recently campaigned in Lira city and cursed minister Betty Amongi for seeking to break the plate she is feeding from. She told the president to force out Amongi on grounds that she was using the government opportunities accessed to her as a minister to sow discord and undermine the ruling NRM cohesion and unity in Lango. She told the president to be selective about his kindness making it clear that some people don’t deserve any mercy.

Among asked the president to join her and others to ensure that Jane Ruth Aceng who is NRM conc. wins the race for Lira city woman MP. Minister Peter Ogwang was also present and urged the voters and the president to ensure Aceng wins because she sacrificed a vibrant career as a medical doctor to come and serve the NRM party, which must now be there for her. Among fell short of demanding that UPC first lady Amongi gets dropped from cabinet. She stressed that Museveni must wear a bold face and call out Amongi if he to ever permanently build NRM as a strong party in Lango.

The bitterness with which Anita Among spoke about the UPC lady motivated Aceng supporters to support her even more and it only added to Betty Amongi’s problems. The Obote family members hate her to the extent they recently ordered her to vacate their father’s house in Lira. They accused her of politically defiling the house by using it to promote an agenda that is anti-UPC.

She has since defied and ignored Obote’s son Tony Akaki who had led siblings in forcing her out. That humiliation of Obote’s children has further alienated Amongi from some UPC diehards in Lango who have now revenged by increasing their support for Aceng.

In the Lango church of Uganda diocese, many hate Amongi because she is hostile to their bishop Alfred Olwar who she one time went on radio and spent one full hour abusing. This was after Olwar organized a big prayer crusade at Aki Bua stadium where raging cobra snakes almost destroyed former Archbishop Orombi who was in Lira to head prayers against witchcraft.

Amongi saw the prayer gathering as an act of hostility towards her and started quarrelling while accusing Olwar of supporting her opponent Aceng. Amongi believes she qualifies for and deserves more support from the church of Uganda of Lira. She remains hated by hundreds of Olwar’s followers who say there was no need to declare war on the bishop.

Amongi is also hated by another group of people in Lira and Lango who have never forgiven her for backing engineer Odongo Michael Okune to become the new Lango paramount chief Wonyachi yet there was Yosam Odur, his former boss. They are angry that Amongi used her position at Gender ministry to impose Okune on the Lango clans even when there was a clear court order.

These are many and they are influential including ambassador Dickson Ogwang who almost lost his job of being ambassador simply because he led others in opposing Okune’s ascension to the throne. Ogwang was going to lose his job because of hostilities from the Amongi group and he only survived because president Museveni is a reasonable man who doesn’t operate on rumors and hearsay. Those in the Yosam Odur group are all out against Betty Amongi who they consider to be a very bad-hearted person.

There is also the issue of William Omodo-Omodo, the spokesperson of the paramount chief. He is now standing to become the MP for Oyam north on the NRM ticket and thinks he is entitled to open support from Amongi since they are partners in the Okune project. Omodo is facing Dr. Eunice Otuko Apio of the UPC party who won the by-election after minister Okello Engola’s death. Okello had bad relationship with Amongi at gender where she was his boss.

Omodo is angry that Amongi hasn’t been able to support him openly in Oyam, where she used to be woman MP, because she fears to annoy UPC secretary general Ebil Ebil, who is Apio’s husband and is working hard with Akena to make sure UPC defeats Omodo who has been standing many times before for the same seat. Omodo’s people in the city are hurting and feeling betrayed which is why they want Amongi to fail.

Still in Oyam south, which Amongi abandoned for Lira city after being area MP for 20 years without doing anything tangible for the people, there are big problems for the UPC first lady because of the circumstances under her brother Geoffrey Owili was declared UPC flag bearer. Many UPCs felt this was a rigged exercise and responded by recruiting their people who vote in Lira city to gang up against Amongi.

Yet that isn’t all about the Oyam ghosts haunting Amongi. There is her sister Santa Alum who has been Oyam district woman MP since 2011 when she defeated NRM’s Beatrice Lagada who had been fighting with Amongi for the same seat. Amongi first joined parliament as Apac woman MP in 2001. Then in 2006, she relocated to Oyam where she has been serving as MP since that time. Santa Olum had been a secondary teacher in Nsambya Kampala from where Amongi lured her to come and disorganize Lagada.

Santa Alum and Amongi fell out after she thoroughly defeated her opponent Santa Acayo of NRM in 2021. Alum was re-elected in 2021 with 90,787 votes against Acayo’s mere 9,424 votes. Intelligence took note of this and when he read their report, president Museveni was so much concerned and wanted to know more about this superb mobilizer called Santa Alum. He got to meet her through Jacob Oulanyah who had just become the NRM vice chairman for northern region.

The president pampered and even gave her money in a bid to patronize her and lure her into his political orbit, something which greatly angered Amongi who became jealously of Alum because she wanted to be the only UPC woman that Museveni fears and takes note of in Lango. Alum used the money she was given to put up a very big house for herself in Kira complete with a swimming pool, a thing which angered Amongi even more.

That is how the fight between the two UPC women started. When Akena, as UPC president fired Alum from the position of being UPC whip in parliament, many in Oyam concluded this was Amongi fighting their daughter again. Bad blood only escalated when Akena’s knifing of Alum was blocked by Anita Among on grounds that Obote’s son was now the kiwaani UPC president with no power to fire or appoint anyone to any position in the name of UPC.

Anita Among, whose seat of speaker risks being targeted by Betty Amongi a very ambitious woman come May 2026, told Akena he had been fired and removed through a court ruling and that he was no longer UPC president. Akena had given the job of UPC whip to Jonathan Odur who he wanted to appease so that he doesn’t criticize his squeeze Betty Amongi in the Lira city race. Alum is now openly supporting Aceng in the Lira city woman MP race, against Betty Amongi who is also hated by many other big people in Lango.

Long before Anita Among openly declared war on Amongi, general Kahinda Otafiire had already been to Lira city to de-campaign Betty Amongi. He called her greedy and ungrateful to the NRM which favored her with a cabinet position even when she doesn’t belong to the ruling party. That day Otafiire told the Langis many things why Lira city stood to benefit much more from retaining Aceng than gambling with Amongi whose 25-year track record as MP from Oyam he disputed.

Yet away from Otafiire, there are many other big people who would naturally find Amongi unlikeable. These include the deputy speaker of parliament and state house’s Moses Byaruhanga. Not very long ago, Amongi appeared before a committee of parliament headed by Mpaka Mwine, investigating the scandals at NSSF.

Amongi who was being accused of witch-hunting NSSF MD Richard Byarugaba for refusing to give her money told the committee she was being witch-hunted by Byarugaba’s supporters in government and named the deputy speaker and Moses Byaruhanga. She claimed these two had been summoning her to secret meetings at night to implore her to let Byarugaba stay on as NSSF MD.

She told the committee she even had audio recordings to prove her point and claimed she had been recording each and every meeting to which the duo summoned her. The bigger picture is that there are many people who felt Byarugaba had been a good manager and have never forgiven Amongi for the persecution he went through in his last days before being forced out of the MD job which went Amongi blue-eyed boy Patrick Ayota.

Even in Lira city and larger Lango, there are a lot of people and opinion leaders who are angry that as of the morning after 15th January, Lango sub region will politically have lost one of its most senior ministers in Museveni’s government-regardless of who carries the day in Lira city.

“We wanted both of them as a region because the more ministers you have inside there, the better. Amongi simply had to remain in Oyam and leave Aceng in the city because both of them were assured of winning. But now one will win and the other loses. She who causes such loss to the people of Lango, can’t be someone claiming to be part of the future we are busy forging and wanting to leave for our children as leaders of Lango. You must be out of your mind to abandon your own safe seat and insist on raiding someone else’s seat the way Betty Amongi did,” said one of the opinion leaders.

Many in Lira city have concluded that Amongi’s switching to the city wasn’t motivated by desire to serve Lango better because her track record of 25 years as Oyam MP doesn’t put her anywhere on the list of transformative MPs who use such positions to positively improve life of their people.

After 25 years of being area MP, Amongi would struggle to show any tangible thing she has done for Oyam, a district with the highest number of teenage mothers and with the country’s worst stats regarding school dropouts. Household poverty is higher there than in many other parts of Lango.