UGANDA: GENESIS FROM GEN. PAUL LUKECH BURIAL, FORMER UN UNDER SECRETARY FOR CHILDREN AFFAIRS AMB. OLARA OTUNNU INITIATED ROCCO PACO, ACHOLI CULTURAL REVIVAL

UGANDA: TRACING THE ROCCO PACO GENESIS FROM GEN. PAUL LOKECH EULOGY, 2021: TWO GIANTS CHIGAMOI AND OTUNNU SHINE PATHWAY TORCH

The late Lt. Gen. Paul Lokech. A gallant soldier who did not die in vain. A simple eulogy during his burial in 2021 led to the initial idea of Rocco Paco Acholi (Courtesy photo). 

What began as a brief speech by Chief Justice (CJ) Alphonse Owiny Dollo Chigamoi during a send-off of late Gen Paul Lokech in 2021, has resulted into a vison and mission to wake up the entire Acholi region from their slumber spearheaded by Amb. Olara Otunnu alongside Chigamoi himself.

Lt. Gen. Paul Lokech died Aug, 21, 2021, reportedly of a blood clot in his leg that he sustained after falling off a plastic chair in his house, a narrative that remains unbelievable to many who ask “how can a General who survived hails of bullets be killed by a plastic chair?

Chief Justice Chigamoi message during the burial in Pader town on Aug. 30,2021 forced Amb. Dr. Olara Otunnu to talk to him and begin a brainstorming session with him on what can be done to revive an ailing Acholi community. CJ Owiny Dollo began his speech as follows:

“There’s a great thing to say about Gen. Paul Lokech, he utilized the opportunity he was given by God. “Gen Lokech, had a personal assignment to see the Acholi people to regain their past glory. God had his own plan for him.”

 “(However), the family has the right to know what happened in the death of Gen. Lokech…. “When the Government designed the Parish Development Model (PDM), they forgot that Acholi Sub Region was at war for 21 years. It generalized the sub-regions as uniform, the Acholi Sub Region being the same as Buganda, Bugisu, and Ankole Sub Regions.”

‘’Acholi Sub Region PDM should have had the Village Model (instead of Parish Model). The PDM should be lowered to the village model in respect to the Acholi Sub Region. Gen. Lokech has died still leaving the Acholi as the most destitute tribe in Uganda.’’

‘’The Acholi Sub Region in terms of academic performance from 1950s to 1980s was competing with East Mengo in the Buganda Sub Region, the best at that time. But if you observe now, education has died in the Acholi Sub Region. My plea to the Government of Uganda is to restore the good education standards of those times.’

There was a listening post in the name of Amb. Olara Otunnu during this brief but powerful eulogy.’

Gulu City-Sunday, April 19, 2025

By Okumu Livingstone Langol

Amb. Dr. Olara Otunnu was quietly listening to the eulogy poured during Gen. Paul Lokech’s burial in 2021 and four years later, he confronted C J. Owiny Dollo in the backdrop of his burial speech.  Let us ask what prompted the former UN Under Secretary to follow up on C.J.’s remarks during the burial.

Dr. Ben Kihiingi who was the personal doctor of the Late Paul Lokech had pronounced during the burial that the General wanted to make Acholi hardworking poverty fighters and proud of the sweat of their work.  Dr. Khiingi asked then, “where are the professors in this land? Let us not stop with C.J. Owiny Dollo and Speaker Jacob Oulanyah only. The professors have a big role to play in the development of this region.”

Other speakers during the burial of Gen. Paul Lokech included an elder and cousin to the deceased, Peter Okwera. Peter Okwera told the mourners; “this is a painful death, if it was a direct attack you would not die alone. “If it was during an open war, we would die together. “If it was a direct war, would anybody manage you? “Go and sit on the right hand of the Lord. “It’s a tragic death,’’ Okwera quipped.

The late Jacob Oulanyah Lukori, then Speaker to Parliament captured the attention of mourners with his characteristic rhetoric: ‘’there you are, yet another one, another tragic death! “We remain tongue tied. This is a tragic death.’’

Jacob Oulanyah narrated that when he came back from the United Kingdom, he wanted Gen Lokech to visit him, but in turn, Lokech called him to his home where they roasted goat’s meat together.

‘’When we were cracking jokes I asked him; ‘’Are you sure you were not poisoned? He laughed. Gen. Lokech, an elegant tall man asked me if we could sit down and talk.’’

As fate would have it, Jacob Oulanyah Lukori, followed Lokech to the other life seven months later on, in March 2022.

A former Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, upon learning about Gen Paul Lokech passing was reported to have acknowledged that death had indeed robbed Uganda and Africa of a gallant son who was an excellent commander against negative forces in his homeland Somalia. General Paul Lokech was in Somalia from 2001-2012 where he fought fierce battles against Al-Shabaab rebels.

The powerful eulogy of Gen. Paul Lokech by CJ Owiny Dollo aside, Amb. Olara Otunnu admits that one of the things that made him ponder about the Acholi revival was the mysterious debilitating illness that rocked the homeland in the name of the nodding syndrome.

Chief Justice Owiny Dollo revealed that ‘’one day Amb Dr. Olara Otunnu came to my home in Kampala, and our meeting brought this Rocco Paco. ‘’ In the meeting, they noted that “Acholi homesteads had been destroyed, and they needed a revival of their traditional customs and norms. Owiny Dollo noted in Luo: “mito wakwanyo tong kaba ki alwiro wek waryemo too paco woko” meaning we need to rise up, pick our large and small spears to fight against the total destruction of our heritage.”

‘’The person who can make Acholi people to get out of these abominations at home, God should grant him/her more years to stay in this world,” C.J Owiny Dollo Chigamoi reiterated.

Four years down the road, Feb. 15, 2025 during the memorial service of the late Gen Bazilo Olara Okello in Madi Opei, Lamwo District, CJ Owiny Dollo re-echoed the fact that the great sons of Acholi are not dying in vain. That they are setting the people of Acholi to rethink how they can garner strength towards revival of their lost glory. The CJ informed thousands of mourners that Amb. Olara Otunnu left his UN, Under Secretary job and came back to revive Acholi’s deplorable state.

The CJ made reference to the fact that the Acholi’s descendance into decadence, can, among others, be explained by being herded en-masse into Internally Displaced People’s Camps (IDPs) where they lost access to their own resources and relapsed into the hopelessness of depending on humanitarian assistance that were not enough. He decried the moral decadence that characterized the camp life, complete with absolute poverty.

He added; ‘’When a fire guts a co-wife’s house, a real woman does not resort to fighting her co-wife, but first of all make sure that she puts out the fire. Even if you are a devil worshiper, wizards of all kinds, you first put your differences aside.

Amb. Dr. Olara Otunnu on his part said he traversed the entire globe while performing his role in the UN but did not witness a worse humanitarian situation than that of the Acholi Sub Region.

“I have moved to Europe, the USA, the Scandinavia, and the Balkans region, Eastern Asia, Middle East, India and China. “I have not witnessed the disgracing deep-rooted state of humankind like that of the Acholi, yet Acoliland was before colonization by the British flowing with honey and milk.

‘’The Acholi are now subjected to humiliation and are outcasts in Uganda. “We have to come up with 16 committee members to analyse and do research to identify the root causes and find the solutions to our problems. “What are the real problems our people are facing?’’ Otunnu asked.

‘’Revival of Acholi traditional cultural norms can be compared to a woman who is in labor pain, the midwives must handle the fetus with extraordinary attention. “This is why we summoned all Acholi council of elders, youth, academicians, politicians and our mothers in what we called the Pongdwongo declaration,” Otunnu added.

As it is now, there are blueprints that help in this agenda for the revival of Acholi community, thanks to the thought-provoking demise of a gallant General called Paul Lokech.