Lenia Charity Kevin’s Parliamentary Bid: A Reason for Vurra MP Adriko to Worry

ARUA. It last happened almost ten years ago when Mourine Osoru, a 24-year-old fresh graduate came from the University to unseat Christine Abia, the then great Arua district woman Member of Parliament (MP).

Abia had already served for three terms in office on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party only to be defeated by the little known Osoru who wielded the brand of being young and fresh thus earning her a nickname, Kacha literally meaning a young, beautiful and eye-catching lady.

If we are to go by the adage, History repeats itself; this time, it is Hon. Yovan Adriko, the Vurra County MP to worry of another ‘Osoru’ coming in different shades.

This follows a decision taken by Charity Kevin Lenia, a fresh graduate from Makerere University Business School (MUBS), to come and contest for Vurra county Parliamentary seat on the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party come 2026 general elections.

Lenia, a former Vice Guild President of MUBS and Guild aspirant comes at the time MP Adriko is contemplating to lay down strategies of retaining his seat.

With many other former challengers like Peter Pariyo and Eng. Gabriel Ajedra Aridru showing interest in the same seat, Adriko now has more reasons to worry of Lenia’s coming given the fact that she carries Osoru’s brand which is still fresh in the minds of the voters in Vurra county who also participated in voting for Osoru during the 2016 general elections.

Political analysts believe that Lenia, a born of Logiri sub-county which happens to be MP Adriko’s home sub-county where he got majority of his votes, also gives her another upper hand to weaken the incumbent’s home support hence reducing his chances of going back to the August House.

But while declaring her bid for the Vurra County Parliamentary seat over the weekend, Lenia who is also in her 20s, said she is not coming to compete against Adriko but to compete for the position of a directly elected MP for Vurra Constituency which will be declared vacant by the Electoral Commission next year.

“I’m up for the race with the men and it is not a fight with the men, I want to make this clear. Every time people ask me, Lenia, you are competing with this man? No, we are not competing against each other, we are competing for the position that is there and that is Member of Parliament position which is to represent the people of Vurra in Parliament. I’m not competing against any one and that is why I want to have all these people as comrades and as colleagues because we can work together after winning,” Lenia clarified.

She said by the time someone comes for a leadership position; it means that the person has the brain to put something on the table.

Lenia, formerly a National Unity Platform (NUP) supporter noted that she decided to cross to NRM so as to work with the party she knows can make her to easily deliver better services for the people.

“To me, it is about the passion to change Vurra, to lobby for Vurra and I believe as a person that I can only do that by working with the government in power because there are systems and structures that are already created. I will base on that to lobby for opportunities to come to the people of Vurra,” Lenia said.

“As a lady who completed University, I would always come back home for holidays in Vurra and particularly in Logiri sub-county but then, my first attraction was with the community. You would see that Vurra as a Constituency is very much different from the other Constituencies in other parts of the country particularly in regards to development. Our level of socio-economic development is still very low,” Lenia added.

Lenia, however, said she is not going to blame the problem on the leaders because systems of working are different.

“So, we believe in different ways of working. Leaders that are there, I will appreciate them, they have done what they are supposed to do, they have really tried to pull us to where we are today and I appreciate them for that so much. I’m not going to degrade them at any point, but then my point here is how do we raise better, how do we build Vurra better even together with the existing structures of leadership that we already have and that is why I have come,” Lenia remarked.