By Ruth Mirembe
On Thursday, the deputy speaker Thomas Tayebwa represented his boss Oboth-Oboth at the Archbishop Stephen Kazimba Mugalu-led prayers during which the 12th Parliament was officially dedicated to God. Full video version can be accessed via this YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8XIiEbRr4Y&t=1004s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXDiWlvBNOY&pp=0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv
As part of his speech towards the end of the evening church service, Tayebwa joked about the fact that by Christmas Dr. Kazimba, who many earlier speakers had praised for leading so well, will have ceased to be Archbishop Church of Uganda.
Tayebwa called on Kazimba to deliberately manage himself in a way that will keep him visible and relevant to avoid sinking into total oblivion-in the post-retirement period. He then proceeded to jokingly implore him to find a way of clinging on and secure more terms as the incumbent Archbishop of CoU.
“Why do you give up power that easily? Why don’t you learn from the revolutionaries? I don’t know why you give up power? Eeh! In church you mean you don’t have revolutionaries?” joked Tayebwa as members of the congregation, chiefly MPs and Ministers, engaged in prolonged laughter.
There was no chance for Kazimba to publicly respond to all this jocular provocation by Tayebwa because the Deputy Speaker was the very last one to speak. Many considered Tayebwa’s banter-filled proposal controversial because none of Kazimba’s predecessors ever attempted to reign for life the way it has become the norm in the politics. Even if he were to try to cling on, there are almost zero chances that Dr. Kazimba, who is already on his farewell tour, would succeed.
In the same speech, Tayebwa called on Kazimba and the rest of the clergy to pray for all MPs and the entire leadership of Parliament to be able to meet the high expectations of the electorate; majority of whom he said consider an effective successful Parliament to be synonymous with antagonizing the executive at all times.
He called on fellow MPs to vigorously push back against such thinking while honestly and candidly calling out their own voters for their own inadequacies such as laziness and not wanting to work while expecting everything to come from their legislators.
He said the truth is that the reputation of Parliament had greatly been battered during the preceding years and the leadership needs prayers to succeed in rehabilitating the same. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
