From Village Fires to Parliamentary Lights: The Unyielding Journey of Hon. Akol Rose Okullu

 October 28, 2025   |    139 views

By Aribabai Updates | Kotiokot, Bukedea
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The fire crackled softly under the open sky of Kotiokot Village, and the night smelled of roasted cassava and fresh millet dough. Around it sat a little girl — legs folded neatly, eyes wide with wonder — listening to her grandfather’s voice weave tales of hunters, spirits, and the stubborn resilience of the Iteso people. In the faint glow, her small hands turned groundnuts into paste, mixing it with honey and ghee — Emuna, the sweet butter of her childhood.

No one could have guessed that this same girl — who once danced barefoot for a single shilling under her father’s gramophone music — would one day sit among lawmakers of the East African Legislative Assembly, her voice carrying the calm confidence of a woman who has known both scarcity and success.

Life, as Hon. Akol Rose Okullu would later learn, is like that evening fire: it begins small and fragile against the wind, but if tended with patience and purpose, it grows bright enough to light the world.

Roots of Resilience: Lessons From the Hearth

Her story begins in Kumi, where her father, Mzee Yorobwamu Okullu, served diligently at Kumi Dispensary (now Health Centre IV). From him, Akol inherited a devotion to service; from her mother, the grace of endurance.

“I recall going to the garden early to weed five to ten rows of cassava before school,” she remembers. “It was expected of all of us — and that’s how I learned the value of work.”

Evenings were for laughter and rhythm. Her father’s gramophone — the family’s pride — spun songs that turned the homestead into a small dance hall. “He’d call us to dance, and the best dancer got one shilling. That was a lot then,” she says with a chuckle. “I never missed my prize.”

Those dances taught her more than rhythm — they taught her confidence, poise, and the art of standing tall before a crowd, a skill that would later define her public life.

The Grandfather’s Lesson: When the Cattle Were Taken

The laughter faded the day the Karamojong raiders stormed Kotiokot in Malera. The family’s cattle — every hoof and hide — were taken from her paternal grandfather. He was a proud herdsman, but the loss broke his spirit, and he never recovered.

“That was when I learned that strength isn’t inherited — it’s chosen,” Akol says quietly. “You either stand or sink. I chose to stand.”

It was a painful initiation into life’s unfairness — but it built in her a heart that bends but never breaks.

The Mischievous Scholar and the Making of a Leader

At Ngora High School, Akol became both the model student and the cheerful rebel. Bright, especially in Mathematics, yet mischievous enough to leave a legend behind.

“There were social functions we couldn’t afford,” she laughs. “So, we’d sprinkle pepper in the hall — chaos everywhere — and sneak in free!”

Her wit and courage made her both loved and feared. Yet she balanced rebellion with righteousness. Together with peers, she led a campaign for decency, publicly posting the names of errant students — a moral movement that restored dignity and discipline.

But when she was nearly expelled after a waragi scandal in her dormitory, her Maths teacher, Rev. Fr. Lunen, stepped in:

 “She’s a good student,” he told the administration. “She made a mistake — not a habit.”

It was a defining act of mercy — and a lifelong reminder that leadership requires both justice and compassion.

Dreams of a Nun, Destiny of a Nation Builder

In her youth, Akol dreamed not of politics but of purity. She admired Sister Molly, the calm and meticulous administrator of Kumi Girls Primary School.

“I wanted to be like her — calm, organized, respected,” she recalls. “At one time, she even wanted me to become a nun, but Daddy refused.”

So instead of the convent, Akol took a different vow — one to discipline and excellence. She joined Nakawa for professional training in the Institute of Chartered Secretaries( ICSA), a bridge between accounting and administration.

“I wanted to be an administrator — to be in charge,” she smiles. “But life made me an accountant.”

Her thirst for excellence later carried her to Glasgow, UK, where she honed her skills at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. The world had begun to open — and leadership was no longer a distant dream.

When Pain Became Purpose

The day she lost her mother to cancer, Akol’s quiet flame became a blazing mission.

“That loss changed me,” she says softly. “I decided that others must live where she couldn’t. I started funding free cancer and health testing in my community.”

What began as grief turned into purpose — a lifelong devotion to community health and women’s welfare. Her childhood had taught her endurance, her youth had taught her empathy, and her loss gave her purpose.

From Kotiokot to Kampala: The Rise of a Reluctant Politician

Politics, she insists, was never her dream. “I never imagined myself in politics,” she says. “I just wanted to fix things. And when you want to fix things, politics finds you.”

From Bukedea Woman MP to EALA Representative, Hon. Akol Rose Okullu has carried with her the humility of a farmer’s daughter, the discipline of an accountant, and the unbroken spirit of a child who once danced for a shilling under her father’s gramophone light.

Epilogue: The Fire That Still Burns

To this day, when she speaks in Parliament, her tone carries something earthy — the calm authority of one who has touched both the soil and the stars.

Her story is not one of privilege, but of perseverance polished by pain; of humility crowned by honor. She remains, at heart, that little girl from Kotiokot Malera — dreaming, learning, dancing — only now, the dance floor is larger, and the audience, a continent.