President Yoweri Museveni has met with the ‘speaker’ who was supposed to preside over today’s plenary sitting, a day after over 60 Ugandan youths were arrested and remanded for calling for the resignation of Speaker Anita Among over alleged corruption.
Anita Among (Bukedea DWR – NRM) and Thomas Tayebwa (Ruhinda North – NRM) are listed as the speakers of Parliament of Uganda on its official X account. But it is common knowledge that Among is the Speaker and Tayebwa is the deputy Speaker.
Tayebwa presided over yesterday’s plenary sitting in which opposition MPs were vocal in demanding that the issue of alleged parliamentary corruption be debated and condemned after damning claims as laid bare during the Uganda Parliament Exhibition. But Tayebwa insisted that would be discussed at another time – even as youths threatened to march to parliament demanding Anita Among’s resignation.
Today, clerk to parliament Adolf Mwesige Kasaija first announced that the speaker had called off this week’s plenary sittings and would only resume on July 30. But later, Kasaija said the speaker had now called a special sitting for Thursday.
The circumstances that had forced the suspension of this week’s sittings had remained a matter of speculation but a top government officials has revealed that the president was meeting the presiding officer assigned today’s sitting.
Hamson Obua, the Government Chief Whip, has said that the reason Speaker Among had found no option but to call of today’s plenary sitting was simply because the presiding officer who was supposed to chair the sitting had a “strategic meeting’ with the head of state at the same time the sitting of parliament was supposed to be happening.
“I know that the Presiding Officer, under the Parliamentary calendar, who is supposed to chair the sitting today is at the moment involved in a strategic meeting with the head of state,” said Obua, according to Parliament Watch.
It was not clear if the meeting was abrupt or if it had been planned – for why would the presiding officers call off the sitting after the order paper had been released? It was also not clear who of the ‘speakers’ the president was meeting or if they were both ‘summoned’ for the ‘strategic meeting’ whose agenda is yet to be confirmed.
In the evening of July 24, Speaker Anita Among was at the headquarters of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) where she signed in the condolence book in honour of Simon Peter Aleper, the NRM Vice Chairperson for Karamoja and former MP for Moroto Municipality, who died in a road accident.
It should be remembered that previously, after she was slapped with sanctions, the speaker met with Museveni.
In tomorrow’s special sitting, the MPs will pay tribute to Aleper, a matter of national importance that means there will be no chance for the people’s representatives to discuss parliament corruption allegations – and most unlikely call on Speaker Anita Among to resign. But Museveni’s government has been warned that ignoring the demands of Gen Zs could lead his government to regrets. (See related reporting Here and There).
