Speaker Among Welcomes Move To Sack LoP Ssenyonyi And Allow Parliament To Elect LoP – Gives Opposition MPs Necessary Support To ‘Cut’ Bobi Wine’s Wings And Weaken NUP

Parliament is currently sitting in Gulu for the Northern Uganda regional parliamentary sittings presided over by Speaker Anita Among at Kaunda grounds. The sessions commenced yesterday and will end on Friday 30th August 2024.

Speaking at the prenary yesterday speaker Anita Among restricted discussions to only matters related to Northern Uganda particularly West Nile, Acholi and Lango and said she would not entertain any other issues apart from those concerning the said areas.

“This session is devoted for the People of Northern Uganda and for us to discuss regarding the Greater North. Let us have respect for the people of the greater north. We should learn to have respect. Issues that don’t concern this region shouldn’t be discussed. You have your Kampala House there, where you can do all the Manyanga (nonsense)”-said Anita Among.

The bigger opposition number heeded to the calls by the Leader of Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi who together with the Shadow Cabinet agreed in unison to boycott the Gulu parliamentary sessions saying it’s a wastage of tax payer’s money and would still discuss the same issues in Kampala.

In another dramatic turn of events from Gulu where the president addressed parliament, opposition Members of Parliament in Gulu are hatching a plan to start electing their own Leader of Opposition not for the Party with the majority MPs to be appointing just like it has been from Day.

Since the return of multi-party politics, the Forum for Democratic Change has been the Leading opposition party until 2021 when Bobi Wine’s wave swept and captured the turn. FDC had Prof Morris Ogenga Latigo, Nathan Nandala Mafabi, Wafula Ogutu, Winnie Kiiza and Betty Aol Ochan.

National Unity Platform (NUP) started off the turn with Mathias Mpuuga from 2021- December 2023 who was dropped and replaced by Joel Ssenyonyi who according to political analysts is giving hard time to parliamentary leadership. These say unlike Mpuuga who was soft to handle, Ssenyonyi is becoming a hard nut to crack, this could be the reason for the new move to elect the Leader of Opposition.

Parliament has since granted Democratic Party’s Richard Lumu (Mityana South), leave to present a Private Member’s Bill, where he is seeking to have all Opposition MPs participate in the election of their Leader of Opposition and Chief Opposition Whip, as opposed to having such individuals imposed on them by the main Opposition Party in Parliament.

Lumu wondered why the Catholics can vote the Pope, Ugandans Vote for a President, and MPs elects a Speaker, while the Leader of Opposition and Chief Opposition Whip are exempted from the same democratic principles he says they claim to profess to.

National Unity Platform’s Michael Kakembo (Entebbe Municipality) while seconding Lumu’s motion argued that there is nothing wrong with Opposition MPs voting their own leader, saying such a move will ensure the current culture of the Leader of Opposition thinking that they own all Opposition MPs.

“I am convinced that this move is going to give us more unity as the Opposition, and respect for each other. Let us vote for our leaders, what is wrong with that? I am standing here to second this motion in good faith, it will help us, it will build us more because unity of the Opposition means strength of the Opposition and respect for each other. I must participate in the electing of my leader as the Opposition,” said Kakembo.

The likes of Tororo Woman MP Sarah Opendi desired to say something against Lumu’s proposal but the Speaker, who doesn’t like Joel Senyonyi and Bobi Wine because they have been standing up to her, didn’t allow them. Opendi had also desired to remind the Speaker of what she said the previous day when she shut up Theodore Sekikubo while making it clear that the Gulu session should be dedicated to Northern Uganda issues as opposed to entertaining things relating to the signatures that were collected to have the conduct of Mathias Mpuuga and other Commissioners of Parliament inquired into.

Among directed the Clerk to Parliament to render Richard Lumu all the support he requires to have his private members bill ready as quickly as possible so that the NRM-dominated House can vote on the same. The matter was put to vote and majority proclaimed yes to the private members bill which Lumu will be drafting and tabling in Kampala for 2nd reading.

The implications of the Richard Lumu proposal of an elected LoP, as was first mooted and proposed by Medard Segona during the 10th Parliament, will in effect weaken Bobi Wine or whoever will be President for the leading opposition party going forward after the 2026 elections. The same will give the ruling NRM, which numerically dominates Parliament, leeway to determine who leads the opposition side.

This will weaken the power and authority of the leading opposition party leader and won’t be good for the multiparty dispension.