The Lira District LCV chairman Mr. Okello Orik has been missing for the last 17 days. According to sources at the district, the LCV chairperson was summoned and was supposed to appear in court yesterday the 6th December 2022, to answer to a defilement case but he did not show up to court.
Mr. Bonny Omar, Okello’s assistant states that he last heard from his boss on 20th November 2022 when he was delegating a task to him.
“He was sending me to attend a meeting in Gulu and since then, I have not heard from him. His phones are all off and he left behind his escort, driver and the vehicle parked at the district headquarters which is rare and suspicious,” Omar stated.
Okello is being charged with aggravated defilement, a case that has been running from 2006.
“In 2006, Mr. Okello was arrested and charged with aggravated defilement and was given bail but later the case was dropped prematurely in 2007, this was when he was still a staff of Gulu University. After he ran to South Sudan until the last elections in 2021 when he came back and contested as LCV Chairperson and won,” a source revealed.
The victim’s family recently resurrected the case and it has been reinstated with the file being under perusal by the DPP for sanctioning in Kampala which is believed to be the reason for his disappearance.
According to Catherine Ngomoloya, the victim’s mother, Okello has been calling her and her daughter threatening them not to proceed with the case since he was summoned to court.
Ngomoloya and others close to the case believe that he is on the run in South Sudan or that he might be arrested in Kampala.
When Police in Kampala was contacted, it stated that it didn’t have him in custody.
