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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: MONDAY, JULY 14, 2025
They made the distress call on Sunday during a meeting with the former Mayor who visited the communities in orphanage cell, Pangisa ward as part of his campaign program.
While the Congolese contingent said their biggest huddle was securing a burial ground for their community members, the Madi community in particular complained that much of their area is claimed by former Dadamu Sub County which is now incorporated into Ayivu East Division but the Division has not done any development there.
In fact, they said the last time any tangible development took place in their area was a community access road opened by the then Arua municipal council when Asiki was the Mayor.
“We are basically in a no man’s land. The Central Division says we are in Ayivu Division and the Ayivu Division says we are in Central Division. Please come back to office and help us clear this confusion,” one resident appealed.
Asiki acknowledged that in deed a large section of the area occupied by the Madi community lies in Asuru cell in Ayivu Division. He however clarified that they had to open a road in Asuru and Ociba, also in Dadamu because the officials there were sleeping on the job.
“Those people need services and we could not leave them out because we knew that the town was expanding,” said Asiki.
He added: “when you open roads, the value of land along the roads goes up. Utility lies like electricity and water can easily pass alongside the roads and so, the benefits are immense,” he said.
Another resident, Jamila Amaniyo lauded Asiki for the special attention he had devoted to water and sanitation and hygiene programs in his previous tenure of office that nipped in the bud, the menace of cholera, the so called flying toilets in which kiosk operators eased themselves in polythene bags and threw the human waste on roads to contaminate the urban center and the heaps of rotten garbage that used to be a permanent part of the town’s landscape.
She however decried the constant and menacing staff of between street vendors and Arua city enforcement operatives who frequently confiscate the petty commodities of the street vendors many of whom have lost their operating capital in some of the fracas.
Asiki said he can only look into the conduct of the city enforcement staff once he gets into the office of the Mayor of the Central Division.
He said he will revive the garbage recycling plant at Euata and introduce garbage bins along the streets to aid in collection of rubbish.
The youth center in Niva crescent will also be revived and retooled to provide skills training for the young people, he asserted.
Asiki said these are some of the programs that will make Arua great again in his second coming.
During his previous tenure, Arua was recognized as the second best small city in Africa by the Luanda based United Cities and Local Governments in Africa in April 2015.
