Former Aruu County Member of Parliament (MP), Samuel Odonga Otto, has been charged with aggravated robbery and theft of charcoal.
According to URN, a news agency in Uganda, Otto and a group of vigilantes are accused of severely injuring three charcoal businessmen, looting money and vandalizing their vehicle in Atanga sub-county, Pader District, Northern Uganda.
The former MP who is now a self-proclaimed environmentalist handed himself to Aswa Regional Police headquarters in Gulu on Monday, May 8 2023, and was released after hours of recording statements.
Otto’s lawyer, Tony Kitara, told URN that his client was charged with two counts of aggravated robbery of sh1.1m in Atanga sub-county and theft of 380 bags of charcoal in Angagura sub-county.
“It’s all, I think, intended to intimidate the activism against the charcoal dealing, I think in Acholi sub-region. None of us, not even him, banned charcoal dealing, it was the Government of Uganda that banned charcoal dealing. And if you have been following in the media, even the executive director of NEMA [National Environment Management Authority] also came out on the same position, so we’re yet to see how it will play out but the battle line is now drawn. We’re up in arms to defend until the very conclusion of this matter,” said Kitara.
Otto told URN after his release that he smells local politics at play against him since all the charges are emanating from Pader district despite carrying out his campaigns in other areas of the Acholi sub-region.
“The charges as you have seen one of them is theft, I stole 380 bags of charcoal in Angagura. I was there with the chairman LC V who called police himself. But when it comes to charging, you take out Odonga Otto and leave out the LC V. Secondly, all the cases are coming from Pader, I have to Amuru, I have been to Gulu, everywhere but the cases are coming from Pader which means there is an aspect of local politics of getting in mainstream charcoal. Interestingly, without prejudicing what my lawyers have said this day which they claim I robbed Shs 1 million is the very day I was in Kampala,” said Otto
