By KT Reporter
Lawrence Alionzi Dangote, a former Guild President of Makerere University, has won the hotly contested Arua City NRM Mayoral race. Alionzi defeated the incumbent Mayor, Sam Wadri Nyakua, with over 24,300 votes, while Isa Kato, the third candidate, polled 4,200 votes.
The declaration of the final results was made on Friday night, following more than 30 hours of stalemate after the discovery of irregularities in the tallying process.
The RCC Arua Salim Komakech was forced to stop the tallying process on the night of Thursday after irregularities were unearthed. Before the final tallying and declaration of the results, Sam Wadri Nyakua requested to make a statement in which he urged the electoral officials to declare his opponent, Alionzi and immediately walked away.
However, the election officials continued to tally the remaining results and later declared the final results in his absence. At 11:20 pm Friday, Joel Obwonyo, the regional NRM Returning officer, declared Alionzi the duly elected NRM Flag Bearer for the Arua City Mayoral race.
Nyakua and Alionzi camped at the mayor’s gardens throughout Friday as they awaited the regional NRM officials based in Gulu to come and declare the results.
Meanwhile, Isa Kato, the other candidate and his supporters remained calm throughout the process. The irregularity in the tallying led to the arrest of three NRM Registrars of Arua City, Tom Amagu, Luigi Amandu of Etori Ward and Cosmas Atabua of Yivu Ward, who were later detained at Arua City CPS.
Hundreds of supporters of Alionzi, who braved the 30 hours of waiting for the results, took to the streets of Arua City in celebrations throughout the night. “ It was not an easy journey for us and a person of 25 years to win such a race, and I want to thank all my supporters for standing firm to protect our victory,” Alionzi said after his declaration as the winner of the NRM Arua City Mayoral contest.
Salim Komakech, the RCC Arua, called for calm and unity and urged the NRM supporters to prepare for the general elections still to come in January next year.
Last month, Alionzi, who was a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP) defected to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.
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