Jacob Oulanyah: I trust NRM CEC process

Deputy speaker Jacob Oulanyah has expressed confidence that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Central Executive Committee (CEC) will take the right decision on who will become candidate for the speaker job.

Oulanyah, the NRM vice chairperson for northern Uganda, has expressed interest in the race to become speaker.

His boss Kadaga is the incumbent speaker, after taking over from now 10-year-long vice president Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi in 2011.

Before becoming speaker, Kadaga was Speaker Ssekandi’s deputy.

In the race due in May 2021, Kadaga will also face Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, and Democratic Party (DP) Bukoto Central MP-elect Richard Ssebamala.

NRM CEC’s 2016 resolution that ended the standoff between Kadaga and Oulanyah has dominated debate on the 2021 speaker race.

The matter even stole some minutes on the floor of Parliament as pro-Kadaga MPs accused government chief whip Ruth Nankabirwa of using a Whatsapp group to claim CEC had decided on Oulanyah as far as 2016.

Kadaga recently dismissed the 2016 ‘agreement’ where she allegedly asked Oulanyah to stand down for her so that she could serve as speaker for 10 years, then allow him to take over.

Besides dismissing the NRM CEC decision taken five years ago, Kadaga went ahead to launch her third term bid as speaker before the party picked her as candidate.

At the launch in Munyonyo, she attacked her deputy Oulanyah.

Oulanyah says he believes CEC will take the right decision on the matter.

“I believe in the party processes,” he said during a recent political talk show.

“In 2016, they told me ‘let the current speaker finish 10 years; this is 2021.”

NRM CEC is expected to sit to pick a candidate, and Oulanyah hopes to remind members of the ruling party’s top organ of the 2016 resolution.