The Omoro County byelection is hanging in balance after one of the candidates petitioned Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama’s Electoral Commission (EC) to cancel the nomination of NRM candidate Andrew Ojok Oulanyah or halt the poll.
Oscar Kizza, the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) candidate in the Omoro County by-election, has petitioned the EC challenging Ojok’s academic papers and nomination as a candidate.
“We all know that for you to run as a member of Parliament you need to be a Ugandan. The least the law requires is that you should have a minimum qualification of A-level,” said Kiiza.
“So, when I did peruse all the files of all the candidates, I realized the nominated Andrew Ojok Oulanyah, that person has only the national ID on the file. The other academic papers are not his because he doesn’t have backing documents to prove that the papers are his.”
Kiiza says he has since notified the EC, asking the electoral body to cancel Ojok Oulanyah’s nomination.
“Right now they can’t even do damage control… NRM has no candidate, the person EC nominated has no papers.”
Kizza has since asked EC officials to stop calling him on phone but to rather send him an invitation so he can offer more details about the letter he wrote to the electoral body.
He says his lawyers are set and will go to court to seek orders to stop the election if the EC does not formally invite him by close of business on May 19. The Commission has set May 26 as voting day. Kizza’s petition has now thrown the by-election into a state of uncertainty.
The NRM chose Oulanyah’s son Ojok to replace his father Jacob L’Okori Oulanyah, the former speaker of the 11th Parliament, as Omoro County MP.
The Omoro County seat fell vacant following Oulanyah’s death in March 2022. (Read Story Here).
Ojok was recently quoted as saying that he is not the best candidate to replace his father Oulanyah. (Read Story Here).
