Days after President Yoweri Museveni celebrated his 80th birthday, MPs started the debate on him taking fitness tests and having regular medical checkups.
It all began when Pakwach District Woman MP Jane Avur Pacuto appealed to Parliament to make medical checkups for MPs mandatory. Pacuto was concerned that and have doctors come to Parliament to check on MPs.
Pacuto noted that it was “so sad some of us attending certain functions with Sarah Mateke only to hear of her sudden demise,” adding that “it means that many of us are carrying with us ailments that we may not be aware of.”
Sarah Mateke Nyirabashitsi, the Kisoro District Woman MP and junior defence minister, passed on recently. Mateke’s demise was sudden, leaving many of her colleague MPs and ministers shocked.
Presiding over the sitting, deputy speaker Thomas Tayebwa said: “You know we have a Parliamentary clinic, any time you walk in, you do at least those simple checks. Kindly, let us do medical checkups. Let us not take things for granted.
“We don’t want to say that Sarah died because she wasn’t doing medical checkups, no. Sarah was doing, she used to share a few things with us and she was open about hypertension, she would tell you.”
The debate soon moved to Museveni’s age, health and fitness to lead at 80. Comparing Museveni’s situation to US President Joe Biden’s, Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda called for fitness and cognitive tests for Museveni.
“A while ago, MP Pacuto advised that we subject ourselves to periodical medical checks following the sudden death of our colleague. But there are also constitutional requirements. To be a President, the Constitution says you must be mentally and physically fit,” submitted Ssemujju.
“In the United States, President Joe Biden was asked not to participate in the election on account of his age, 81. When you have an 80 year old who keeps making erratic decisions, I want to implore Parliament that we subject our President to periodical mental and physical tests.”
Joe Biden, the oldest serving president in US history, dropped out of the 2024 presidential race after a poor performance against Donald Trump. He endorses Vice President Kamala Harris. (See Details Here and There).
Tayebwa ruled: “You know I told you sometime back that issues of Ssemujju and the President are like issues of Generals. They usually sort themselves. But the man [President Museveni] is doing very well.”
To which Ssemujju insisted, warning of the dangers of an elderly president on key decision making processes. He asked Deputy Speaker Tayebwa who has “more access than any of us” to “kindly do a simple test if the President is fit or physically okay.”
“I am saying this in good faith because the makers of this Constitution had put an article that at 75 years you can’t be President. I wasn’t in the Constituent Assembly… The President himself, you know, before I came here, I was a journalist. We interviewed him and he said at 75 years, you are tired… Someone who doesn’t remember that there is no Governor for the Central Bank,” he said.
“You see when presidents age, you saw what happened in Zimbabwe, even family members start taking national decisions. You saw Grace Mugabe; these days you see the president’s son. I have never seen young people who want to be led by old people and they take pride in it.”
Ssemujju has previously spoken about the first family, including State House’s budget and security. (See Details Here and There).
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