SOROTI, UGANDA: The Iteso Cultural Union Council that comprises over of 50O delegates drawn from Uganda, Kenya and the Diaspora will elect the late Teso Cultural Leader, Emorimor Augustine Osuban Lemukol’s Successor.
The Emorimor Papa Iteso aged 88 years breathed his last on Saturday evening at the Mulago National Referral Hospital where he had been hospitalized for nearly two weeks.
The late Emorimor constituted the Council in 2018 after disbanding the Iteso Cultural Union (ICU) and appointed the then ICU Prime Minister, Paul Sande Emolot the Council chairman, thus making him second in command after Papa Emorimor.
With this emerging trend, Emolot who hails from Tororo in Eastern Uganda is likely to succeed the fallen Paramount Chief unless succession politics takes centre stage.
The move to have the constituted Council delegates the mandate to pick on Papa Emorimor’s successor is aimed at avoiding a split in the union, should aspirants be subjected to elections.
“Consensus is the way to go, thus the need to give the Elders’ Council power to pick on the best person to replace Papa Emorimor who has led the 5million members with due diligence since 2000,” said a Council delegate who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The former PM who hails from Tororo and other eligible candidates will be subjected to scrutiny by over 500 delegates that were picked from gazetted districts leaders.
The gazetted districts in Kenya include Teso South, Teso North, Cheptais and Mt Elgon.
The late Emorimor hailed from Soroti. Whether or not the next paramount Chief should come from Soroti is an issue that is expected to emerge.
Mzee Papyrus Imodot who was the founder of Iteso Cultural Union and the first Paramount Chief of Ateker People.
He became the paramount chief of Iteso in 1994 in the wake of the Uganda People’s Army war; and reigned up to 2000 when he was replaced by Augustine Osuban Lemukol.
The population of Iteso in Uganda is over 4 million people with that in Kenya accounting for over 500,000.
President Yoweri Museveni recognizes cultural leaders by providing funding, a vehicle and a bodyguard.
Emorimor was no exception with a Mitsubishi Pajero and a UPDF solier as seconded to guard him.
Iteso traditions relate that they originated somewhere in what is now Sudan and moved south over a period of centuries.
The Iteso were probably well established in their northern Uganda heartland by the mid-eighteenth century, when they began to move further south.
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