The front bench of Parliament, which should be occupied by President Yoweri Museveni’s appointed Cabinet Ministers was empty as special sitting to pay tribute to fallen Kawempe North MP Muhammad Ssegirinya began in the morning of Friday, January 10, 2025.
Speaker Anita Among complained about the low turnup of MPs. She warned the MPs against politicizing Ssegirinya’s death. The fallen legislator belonged to main opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) led by singer and politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine.
“When such a thing happens, we all ought to be here, to give a decent send off to our colleague. There is no politics in these things. We should never have politics when we have lost our own because today it is me, tomorrow it is somebody else. We are all imperfect mortal beings whose final destiny is death,” the speaker noted.
“I therefore urge all of you to love each other, be there for each other, appreciate one another, irrespective of the weaknesses, shortcomings, let us be there for each other and that is what we will be remembered for.”
Also complaining about the absence of most MPs and ministers was leader of opposition in parliament Joel Ssenyonyi, who comes from Ssegirinya’s NUP.
Ssenyonyi was unhappy that there was no one from the government side to move the motion to honour Ssegirinya. As he spoke, Third Deputy Prime Minister Rukia Nakadama came in.
“I also want to express my disappointment, Deputy Prime Minister has just walked in, before that, there was no one on the Front Bench. Yesterday, I reached out to you intending to move this motion, given that Ssegirinya was one of us, the practice is, normally the Prime Minister moves the motion and the Leader of Opposition seconds the motion, something I was very comfortable with,” said Ssenyonyi.
“In fact, I was glad that the motion would be moved by somebody from the Government side, it was bothersome that this morning, there was no one to move this motion. That is very disappointing.”
Nakadama apologized on behalf of government for the absence of the front bench. She defended herself saying she was not well and that she had been delegated late.
“I want to bring apologies on behalf of Government, I was called this morning at around 8:00am and I was told that we are supposed to move the motion at 10am and because I was sick, I started preparing myself, when it was approaching 9:00am, somebody called me from your office and told me, it is 9:00am,” she said.
“So, there was miscommunication on time, so, I will apologize on behalf of Government that it wasn’t intentional”
You can see Muhammad Ssegirinya burial program Here.
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