Fr. Olaboro! Catholic Father in Trouble Over Land: Widows Want Interventions from the Church, Gen. Isoke
By Davis Mugabi
The widows say Fr. Olaboro concocted them into inking on the paper work…
The cries of elderly women chased of their land continue to haunt Rev. Fr. Centurio Olaboro, the head of Peace and Reconciliation at Tororo Archdiocese.
The matter has escalated and taken a new twist as two widows in his own family are lamenting, crying for help from the State House Anti-Corruption Unit and the Church.
The priest, Rev. Fr. Olaboro, who is currently battling many land scandals at court, was recently dragged to court by his own family for allegedly grabbing their family land for personal use in a matter in which he will appear in court on October 3, 2023.
Kolositika Erema Olupot, 90, and Adongo Merinsiana, say Fr. Olaboro concocted them into signing the paper work which gave their land away for grabbing.
The widows accuse Fr. Centurio Olaboro of intimidating them when he went to them with written documents and forcefully put their thumbs in an ink pad and placed them on the papers without their knowledge and never understood what was contained on the papers.
Kolositika Ereme Olupot
Kolosita.
Seated on a wooden log dressed in a long skirt and pink top and holding a supportive walking stick, her head wrapped with a cloth Kolositika Erema 90 years old dropped tears before narrating her ordeal on how the man of God Rev. Fr. Olaboro has tortured her over land left behind by the late husband Frasco Olupot Erema who is the grandfather of Fr. Olaboro.
According to Kolositika, Fr. Olaboro went to her place with documents and asked her to sign for him without reading or interpreting what was on the papers.
She said that later he pulled a small container (an ink pad) and grabbed her thumb, placed it into the ink pad, and put on the documents he came with. He later disappeared with his papers.
“Fr. Olaboro came here while I was at my place with documents in his hands, greeted me, and asked me to sign for him. When I asked him what the documents were for and the reason, he just grabbed my thumb, placed it in the ink pad, and put the documents there without reading or interpreting the documents, but shockingly, I got information that my husband’s land was surveyed and soon I would be thrown out of the matrimonial home,” Kolositika narrated as her eyes were full of tears.
Asked why the tears, she told us that Olaboro is a known bad-hearted person in this village, and once he gets to know that I talked to the media, he will come for me, the old widow replied.
She said that she wants the intervention of the State House Anti-Corruption Unit headed by Brig. Gen. Henry Isoke, Police’s Land Protection Unit , and the Catholic Church to come to her rescue to tame Olaboro, who surveyed her late husband’s land without her consent.
“I am worried and living under fear for my life, yet I am not sure where my body would be buried because the land has already been taken by Fr. Olaboro. I hope the state house comes in to help me,” Kolositika told this media house.
As she continued crying, her daughter, Jane Olupot, asked us to stop the interview because whenever she thinks about Olaboro, she gets sleepless nights.
The interview was carried out on the day President Museveni visited Tororo to commission the new plant at Tororo Cement, and at that time Kolositika heard the presidential plane and said, Can you imagine Museveni is coming to the neighborhood just a few meters away from here, but he does not know that a man of God whom I think is godless is here torturing an old widow? I wish he could come to hold me out of Olaboro’s captivity over land.
Adongo Merinsiana, 67
Adongo
Languishing now deep in a remote village of Poyawo in Magola sub-county Tororo district, we reached out to Adongo Merinsiana and her ordeal shocks at how a man of God threw her out of her late husband Ogil’s land in Osukuru UCI village.
She said that when her husband Ogil passed away, she wanted her to be buried in his land, but Fr. Olaboro refused and said that a woman has no say in the family and took Ogil’s body to be buried inside the Great Aubrey College just next to his land.
She said that later she found out that Olaboro wanted to have his uncle buried together with his brother Benard Omuse, but shockingly, the motive was discovered later when he grabbed the late Ogil’s land.
Adongo, an officially married and wedded wife to late Ogil narrated that when Olaboro started disturbing her on the land, she went and reported to one Kefa, the area LC1 chairman, who also referred her to take the matters to the clan heads or Osukuru sub-county land office.
She said that all the offices referred to, including Kefa, are undermined by Fr. Olaboro, and there was no need since they could not help her.
Ogil left behind two bouncing daughters: Topista Amugeti, married in Buyemba Tororo and Anyokorit Harriet.
She added that later, Peter Omuse, the former L3 Tororo district councilor for Osukuru, went and built a toilet and bathroom on her land near her house.
Both the toilet and bathroom were for his institution, Osukuru Skills Technical Institute, and after a while, he came back and built a dormitory without her consent or request.
The old widow Adongo said that at that time, one Oporia, a son of the late Benard Omuse, who is Olaboro’s brother, complained about the torture and grabbing of her land, but Peter Omuse rubbished him, saying that he has a bad heart and envy against them (land grabbers).
Peter Omuse responded to Oporia that whether he wanted it or not, he would build it, and he went ahead and constructed the structures.
Adongo went ahead and told us that while she was away, she was called by Fr. Olaboro, and on arriving home, he came with the papers and forcefully grabbed her right-hand thumb, placed it into the ink pad, and put on the documents without explaining what the papers were for, not even reading and interpreting for her.
She said that after that, Fr. Olaboro took the papers and asked Grace Auma to destroy her house and property in her presence.
“Auma, a married woman in Ngelechom village, banged and hit my door later. She entered the house and destroyed my things in my presence on orders of Olaboro. I was chased away from my husband’s land and now languishing here in Payawo without what to eat, no earning, and my land benefits a lot, Olaboro,” Adongo narrated.
She said that later she got information that Fr. Olaboro had surveyed the land without her consent and got a land title.
Adongo, says that she is suffering as Olaboro enjoys and earns out of her later husband’s sweat.
Local residents speak out on Fr. Olaboro
Meanwhile, sections of local residents in Osukuru UCI village have spoken out their minds on what they call misbehaviors of their area son of the soil and priest Rev. Fr. Olaboro.
Mzee Alex Okolongo Elwa, 89
Alex Okolongo
He is a resident of UCI village and the closest neighbor of Fr. Olaboro’s family.
According to Mzee Okolongo, Olaboro’s grandma, the late queen Cecilia Amojongo, came from his family, and therefore he knows much about the late Bernard Omuse family.
He said that from the onset, Fr. Olaboro was wrong, and for a long time, he wanted to reconcile the family after getting information that Fr. Olaboro surveyed the family land without the consent of all beneficiaries.
“I raised almost every child in the Omuse family, but I am not happy with Fr. Olaboro’s actions to grab the family land and deny others their beneficial rights on their late father’s land,” Mzee Okolongo told us.
He said that Olaboro once went to him after he had been dragged to court, but he has been looking for Okedi David Omuse to reconcile them.
The problem is that Olaboro, a man with onyuri nyuri hairs has disorganized the family . Mzee Okolongo added.
Nelson Mandela Kawongo:
At 34, Kawongo, a resident of UCI and also neighboring Olaboro’s family, told us that he grew up not knowing that Olaboro was a priest.
“I grew up here, and one of my best friends in Olaboro’s Omuse family is Cicilia Amojongo, a daughter in the very family whose father is known everywhere in this village.
She used to tell me who her father was, and her mother used to come from Aburi in Kayoro sub-county in Tororo district.
He said that it is a known fact that before Cicilia’s mother passed on, she came and stormed Great Aubrey School, demanding to fight the father of her child, Cicilia Amojong, over negligence, but locals intervened and helped the father of Cicilia.
He said that Great Aubrey Memorial School was started as an orphanage school where children do not pay fees, but it has never happened that all students, including those in the lower primary school, pay fees.
According to Kawango, when they get white visitors who sponsor children, Olaboro prints T-shirts indicating orphanage school, and all students wear them for free. He then trains some children to be interviewed by the sponsors to deceive them into studying for free.
Later, when the sponsors go back, the T-shirts are removed and the fee issues of chasing defaulters begin.
He added that the school Great Aubrey was started by Olaboro’s late sister Anyokorit Magret, but her children are languishing in Tororo without help but surviving to story query while Fr. Olaboro enjoys their mother’s sweat.
He said that Tororo Cement offered free tap water to the residents in the area as a give-back to the community, but the pipes would go through the land controlled by Olaboro, and instead he rejected something that annoyed the locals.
Another resident whose names asked us not to disclose said that Fr. Olaboro could arrest cows that trespass on family land and make residents the owners of the affected cows to pay.
However, one time the cow of Ocheng Dominic, aka Singah, was caught by Olaboro across his garden during Sukuma week, but his attempt to take it failed after the owner, Ocheng Dominic, arrived on time.
The two struggled for the cow and ended up fighting, and Olaboro was defeated.
During the scuffle, Ocheng Dominic grabbed the priesthood collar from Olaboro’s neck and threw it away before announcing publicly that he had ceased to be a priest.
“He threw the white collar in the bush and said that now you are not a priest, go away as the residents shouted, cheering at Singah,” the source intimated to us.
Okedi punches Olaboro
Okedi
When Olaboro allegedly surveyed the family land, he hid the land title for some time without disclosing it to the family members.
However, the nonsense young brother David Okedi Omuse kept on looking for the title document until one day he landed on Olaboro at Great Aubrey School, where he asked for a copy of the land title, and Olaboro dodged.
“He sneaked out of the school and went to hide in our late mother’s house, but I followed him and got him hiding. I asked him for a copy of the land title again, but as he attempted to escape, I boxed him down and raised my hand to add heavy-weight punches. That is when he pleaded to me that it was at school; he called on the phone, and they brought a photocopy,” Okedi narrated.
