Justice and constitutional affairs minister Norbert Mao has doubled down on his “accidental speaker” remarks, asking “was there a plan that Jacob Oulanyah should die?”
Emphasizing that he joined the speakership race because “was not satisfied that I was being represented well,” Norbert Mao sought to respond to critics who have been complaining about his decision to label Anita Among an accidental speaker.
Jacob Oulanyah was speaker of parliament from 2021 to 2022 when he died. His hitherto deputy Anita Annet Among became the speaker of Parliament.
Norbert Mao, the newly elected Laroo-Pece MP and president general of opposition Democratic Party (DP), has labelled Anita Among an accidental speaker.
Anita Among, the Bukedea District Woman MP, has dismissed the accidental speaker label, saying she was elected by over 400 MPs.
Now, Norbert Mao has insisted that Anita Among is an accidental speaker, urging her to look for the dictionary meaning of the word “accidental.”
He argued that unless the death of Oulanyah was planned or intended, then the accidental speaker label fits Anita Among, in his view.
“When I said we have an accidental speaker, I saw a lot of rage. But the answer is in the dictionary. If you open a dictionary, ‘accidental’ means ‘unplanned,’ ‘unintended’ unless they are saying there was an intention and there was a plan,” Mao said at a DP press conference.
“So, was there a plan that the late speaker should die. Was that an intention?”
Jacob Oulanyah’s cause of death was a big question of debate when he died, with his father claiming he was poisoned, and a former Museveni minister claiming Jacob Oulanyah had told him about being poisoned. (See Details Here, There and Over There).
You can see Speaker Anita Among’s response to Norbert Mao on claims that she is an accidental speaker Here.
