Arua City Residents Want Assistant RCC Matua Transferred

ARUA. A section of the residents in Arua Central Division of Arua City have stormed the office of the Resident City Commissioner (RCC) demanding for the transfer of Assistant RCC, Job Richard Matua.

The residents, mainly from Kenya ward, accused Matua of ordering the arrest of six Parish Development Model (PDM) leaders without conducting prior investigations against them.

They claim that Matua was politically used to arrest the PDM leaders from Kenya ward on Wednesday, August 28, 2024.

The suspects, arrested for alleged misappropriation of PDM funds were later released on police bond on the fateful day.

The arrest, however, forced a number of residents from Kenya ward to storm the RCC’s office on Thursday with placards encrypted with various messages against Matua as they threatened to lock his office door.

Hellen Drabezu, one of the PDM beneficiaries in Kenya ward, wondered why her PDM leaders were arrested yet people are getting the PDM funds in Kenya ward cells.

“We are not happy with what Matua is doing in Arua City because he is not the one who brought for us the peace. Was he sent here to come and disorganize NRM?” Drabezu asked.

“We need President Museveni to send for us somebody who brings us together and we work together and we grow together. We need no arrests. Let him go away from here. We need a person who can unite us, we need our NRM on power, we don’t need segregation. If he is power hungry, let him try to stand as a President,” Drabezu said, attracting a loud applause from her fellow demonstrators.

She said they trust their PDM leaders, a reason many of the residents in the area have got their PDM money.

“Right now, we came with all the PDM files, we wanted to hand the files to Mr. Matua, he should go and handle PDM in Kenya ward. But rightly, they sent for us a good RCC (Ham Mizamil Ezama) who has advised us. We are waiting for the next meeting…but we no longer need Matua here,” Drabezu stated.

Mai Wadri, another resident said the arrest of the PDM leaders was uncalled for, arguing that the Assistant RCC was misinformed that the suspects were using PDM to campaign against his favored candidate ahead of 2026 campaigns.

“We want Matua away from Arua because he is aligning with the opposition to fight us as NRM supporters. He is fighting us seriously, he has joined the opposition who are also coming to stand in 2026 to fight our NRM candidates which we don’t want, and if this continues, we shall leave NRM and join the opposition,” Mai warned.

But when contacted, Matua said three meetings chaired by Muzaid Khemis, the Mayor of Arua Central Division were held on PDM at the Division Headquarters, adding that the last meeting involved him.

Matua said it was realized that the last batch of PDM money amounting to shs50m was received but majority of the beneficiaries were not from Kenya ward.

“So, in that meeting, we resolved to go and check the people who got the money and when we went to check, we found that there were people who received the money but they were not from Kenya ward and the people who are in charge of PDM admitted that indeed, there are people who got the money, they are not from Kenya ward,” Matua explained.

“So, that matter didn’t involve any politics. It is a criminal matter. Also, the process of approval of this money was not followed. So, we came with five people and the sixth one came later to record a statement to explain to police so that police can open a general file to investigate the matter. After their statements were recorded, some of the people were detained on the orders of the police, not me,” Matua remarked.

However, about the allegation that he should not work in Arua Central Division, Matua said his appointing authority is clear, he hasn’t done anything wrong and that the decision should be left in the hands of the people who sent him to Arua.

While speaking to the aggrieved locals, Ham Mizamil Ezama, the Arua Deputy RCC in charge of the Central Division called for calm, saying in the wisdom of the RCC, a better and bigger meeting involving all the stakeholders will be convened to resolve the matter.

“We have a chain of command in this office of RCC, so for our Assistant RCC to overlap without consultation with the Deputy and without consultation with the RCC was an oversight which the committee is not comfortable with. That is why you see the arrest has brought a lot of chaos, people are trying to fight and so on. So, we need to be very careful in doing government work, these are public offices when you are doing something, you need to first consult for better guidance,” Ezama advised.