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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: FRIDAY, 23 JANUARY 2026
Gaspero Ombadro Oda may have died 46 years ago but his legacy loomed large as the people in Ayivu East constituency thronged to the polling stations to cast their vote.
On the ballot for the Parliamentary candidates was Eng William Tiyo, a grandson but the moment cast an atmosphere of the old legislator reincarnated.
His background
Raised in atypical peasant family that treasured raring of the traditions domestic animals synonymous with the Lugbara, Oda went to school by fluke and missed priesthood by a whisker.
But he turned out to be dynamic politician who raised West Nile’s banner high during the early years of the building of the foundations of Uganda’s modern statehood.
“He was really a stand out, a firebrand politician in the Democratic Party. I have never seen such a politician emerge from the region under DP again,” the former Koboko district speaker, George Ambe once remarked.
Oda in 1956 represented West Nile on the pre-independence legislative council (LEGCO), the predecessor to the National Assembly of Uganda, thus becoming the first lawmaker from the region to grace the national stage.
He was among the minister’s delegation to the Lancashire Uganda Independence Conference that negotiated the country’s self-rule and in the process cemented his patriotic credentials.
His assassination by unknown bandits on Saturday, September 15, 1979, robbed the country of truly great personality and nobody will ever know what more he had in store to offer to his nation.
Humble beginning
Oda was born in 1911 near Ombaci catholic mission in Cinyara village in Manibe Sub County, Arua district. His parents, Egaru (mother) and Ombadro (father) wanted their son to graze animals at the expense of education.
But cunning and curious as a five-year-old, Oda would leave the animals to eat grass in the grazing place and sneak to the fathers’ quarter where the White missionary priests stayed. No amount of beating from Ombadro discouraged him.
He fled home when he was seven years old to stay with the missionaries who were glad to have a child from whom they could learn the local language.
It was under the guardianship of the missionaries that Oda went to school passing through Lacor minor seminary and Katigondo major seminary.
After the completion of his philosophy studies Oda made a turnaround when his mother pleaded with him not to become a catholic priest.
“He heeded to the advice of my grandmother to marry, otherwise I would not be there,” Tiyo remarked of his prolific grandfather.
It was then that Oda married Dorotia with whom he went on to have ten children all of whom were born between 1942 and 1960 with two years separating one child from another.
Oda joined Vernacular Teachers’ Training College at Lodonga and in 1946, he qualified as a vernacular teacher.
His public life
Oda began teaching in 1948 at Lodonga, two years after finishing his studies at the same college. He became the headmaster of Ediofe Boy’s primary school in 1949.
John Middleton Murry, a renowned anthropologist who was very interested in discovering and knowing who the Lugbara are, hired Oda as his research assistant after touching base in Vurra County. They traversed the territory and the result was the widely read and quoted publication, “The Lugbara of Uganda.”
Oda left teaching and became a sub county chief for Adumi from where he wrapped up his life as a civil servant.
The independence politics
It was in the 1950’s when the political climate was heating up in the run up to Independence that Oda joined in the fray. He started as the secretary general of the Native African Government, an equivalent of what is now the district local government in 1953.
Oda rose to represent the West Nile region in the LEGCO in 1956 when the representation of Africans on the pseudo parliament was significantly increased.
The growing demand for independence necessitated the LEGCO to come up with a road map for democratic self-rule. This had to be done by a competent committee of the law-making body.
Accordingly a constitutional committee popularly known as the Wild Committee was set up of which Oda was one of the 11 members.
The “Wild Committee” considered and recommended to the governor the form of direct elections on the common role for representative members of the LEGCO that took effect in 1961.
The committee determined the number of representative seats that were filled under the new system, their allocation among the different parts of the protectorate and the method of ensuring adequate representation of non-Africans.
It also made additional proposals on the demarcation of constituencies once the population was established.
Voter registration kicked off in 1960 and the first direct elections to LEGCO were held in 1961 where Oda sailed unopposed as the representative of the Central Nile constituency. He used a fish as a campaign symbol.
The representatives were supposed to have a five-year term but after the first independence constitutional conferences in London in October 1961, the Uganda People’s congress colluded with the Kabaka Yekka to go round the arrangements established under the Wild committee’s recommendations that were largely boycotted by the Buganda Kingdom.
It necessitated calling of early elections and transformation of the LEGCO into a truly national assembly (parliament).
While addressing the grass-roots leaders of the National Resistance Movement in West Nile at Muni University on January 9, 2026, President Yoweri Museveni said the 1960’s period was characterised by politics of sectarianism that resulted in a lot of extrajudicial killings.
Indeed Museveni confirmed that Oda was his friend and they were together in the Democratic Party when he developed interest in politics as astudent in the 1960s.
When new election was scheduled for April 25, 1962, Oda changed his campaign symbol from fish to the Democratic Party’s official hoe.
He began campaigns with a UPC opponent but finished unopposed. He conducted campaigns while riding on a bicycle but his opponents just dropped off as they could not cope up with such an orator.
The second London conference of June 1962 cleared the path for Uganda’s independence and the first National Assembly session was held on October, 10, 1962, a day after independence.
Oda went on to serve in various capacities as parliamentary secretary (State Minister) in the ministries of Natural Resources and the Internal Affairs.
Flight to exile
Oda fled to Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1979 due to the war that ousted former President Idi Amin. But when Amin was gone, the new government invited Oda through former Arua diocese bishop Angelo Tarantino to return from exile to participate on nation building consultation in Kampala and Arusha, Tanzania.
Oda was shot dead about 50 meters from his house at Komite village, Pokea parish in Pajulu seconds after he was dropped by the road side from the official car while on his return from Arusha.
That assassination may have robed West Nile and ultimately Uganda of an industrious political figure but there is no denying of the influence of is legacy on the recent parliamentary polls in Ayivu East Constituency.
“I dedicate this victory to the Late Gaspero Oda,” Tiyo declared after the emphatic win, reasoning that the story of Oda captivated the young population to support his candidature.
