Joseph Ayolo, Moroto – A section of elders in Karamoja have tasked the government with producing the vehicle that killed the National Vice Chairperson for NRM in Karamoja, Mr. Simon Peter Aleper.
Mr. Aleper died two weeks ago while traveling to Kampala for the planned NRM CEC meeting.
The death of the prominent Mr. Aleper has left many people questioning the manner in which he died after police failed to find the vehicle said to have collided with the deceased.
Speaking to this publication, elders said they don’t believe any report but would be comfortable seeing the actual vehicle that is claimed to have killed Mr. Aleper.
Mzee Mathew Lokol, an elder, said the death of Simon Peter Aleper seems to have been planned, given the fact that two weeks have passed with no clue about the vehicle that killed him.
“When the state is interested in something, three days is too much for it to get the evidence, but we are wondering why the government has failed to trace the car claimed to have killed the NRM boss,” he said.
According to Mr. Lokol, the death of Aleper has again pained them in the same way the LC3 chairperson, Mr. Apollo Loyomo, was killed in broad daylight.
Last week, this publication visited the place where the incident took place, but many questions still need to be answered.
At Bukoona, where the accident took place, locals who had fear on their faces directed us. This place had humps. Broken glass was still at the scene. The presence of humps means Aspro had slowed down.
Besides, this was the first hump when coming from the Mbale side. There are three humps when coming from the Iganga side. That means any car coming from Iganga had to pass over three humps before reaching where Aspro was. So, it would have slowed down.
Even if some people say that the driver of the truck or car was asleep and the hump woke him up and caused him to lose control, then he should have woken up from the first hump, which is 400 meters from the scene.
Even a driver who wakes up after hitting a hump would try to steer away from the center of the road and not allow the vehicle to go to the opposite side of the road.
Besides, even if there are no CCTV cameras in the area, it is a trading center with people. Even at 1 am, there could still be people out drinking. Even if everyone was asleep, they would have heard the impact of the accident.
Another observation by this reporter is that the scene is 6 km from Nakalama, where the Iganga-Mbale junction branches and starts. The area has CCTV cameras. Can’t the police track the cars that passed at that time?
There is also a murrum road junction to the right. It goes behind the red-roofed mosque building. So, if it was a local truck within Bukoona that entered the road from that junction, a rigorous local inquiry could locate it.
Technology can also locate which phone numbers were in or near the scene of the accident at the time of the accident, including those of the people in the accident truck. These and many other questions remain unanswered.
He was one person who could not look at things going wrong and pretend to be happy with it.
Joseph Nangiro, another elder, said they will not be convinced that their son died in a road accident.
“We want the government to come clear on the death of Simon Peter Aleper,” he said.
Timothy Akorio, another elder, thanked the president for pledging to support the children of the late Mr. Aleper but said that’s not enough.
According to Mr. Akorio, several times the president has pledged to support the family of any fallen member of his party, but this sometimes becomes difficult for the people he directs to handle it.
