By Mulengera Reporters
In his Monday evening speech at Kololo, President Museveni threw veiled burbs at the outgoing Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga when he said it’s very bad for any leader to be vindictive, hate and fail to forgive those who wrong him or her. He wondered why such leaders don’t emulate him for working with pat adversaries like Gen Moses Ali. Museveni, who signaled this (2021-2026) as the Kisanja for social transformation, said he was looking forward to a Parliament that would expeditiously approve budget and resource allocation proposals from the executive without unnecessarily dragging their feet.
As he proposed Kadaga’s name for the position of Speaker, her nominator Stephen Bakubalwayo (Luuka South MP) had earlier in the day implored MPs to kill Kadaga with votes because 24th May being her birthday, she deserved a huge present in form of reelection as Speaker. But in his speech, Museveni cleverly sought to trivialize this by referencing on the country’s history whereby on the same May 24th 1966, Milton Obote’s forces led by Idi Amin raided Kabaka’s palace in Mengo, massacred so many people and forced Kabaka Mutesa to exile where he died three years later.
Gen Museveni asserted that whereas Kadaga’s birth day was very important, serious revolutionaries like him had “more important history” to reflect upon in memory of 24th May. He said whereas in the 1960s that day was used to unleash violence on Buganda, today he is happy it’s being used to witness peaceful change of leadership in Parliament from one Speaker to another. He implied this is more important progress to celebrate rather than mere Kadaga birthday.
Saying he looked forward to working with a united Parliament, while reaching out to fellow leaders beyond just NRM caucus, Gen Museveni thanked the leaders of DP and UPC who he said these days work very well with him. In FDC, he said there are some individual MPs he is already working well with adding that it’s only NUP which has largely been lukewarm. But there is hope to work with NUP too because a good number of their leaders (in Parliament) are willing to work with us, Museveni asserted.
He then reported himself revealing how he spent the 16 hours leading to the Kololo poll ringing and meting up with MPs that were perceived as being strong Kadaga supporters. That as a party leader, he had the obligation to rally all of them behind Jacob Oulanyah who had been agreed upon at both CEC and NRM caucus levels as the official NRM candidate. He enumerated some of the MPs he called on phone including Agnes Nandutu (Bududa woman MP), Rosemary Nakikongoro and others. That he explained to each one of them the dangers of him showing preference for anyone between Kadaga and Oulanyah.
He also revealed how the alliance between Thomas Tayebwa and Rebecca Kadaga posed a very big risk to cohesion in the NRM; the very reason he had to work extra time to have it dismantled ahead of the Monday vote. He admitted meeting a large delegation of Tayebwa’s supporters after the Ruhinda County MP polled close to 150 votes in the Sunday Caucus meeting against Anita Among who subsequently became Deputy Speaker. She polled 415 votes against Yusuf Nsibambi’s 35 and Mohammed Nsereko’s 24 votes.
Museveni revealed that Tayebwa’s supporters weren’t easy to convince and thanked the youthful MP, who initially belonged to FDC just like Among, for accepting to dismantle his structure before subsequently rallying all of them behind Oulanyah. He admitted that if Tayebwa, an excellent mobilizer and a blue-eyed boy of Mama Janet Museveni from Makerere University, hadn’t listened to his advice and decamped from backing Kadaga, the Speakership result would have been fatally different-to the total detriment of the ruling NRM party. The fondness with which Gen Museveni commended Tayebwa created an impression the youthful legislator is headed for some juicy cabinet deployment.
Museveni also claimed to have obtained some intelligence information from the Tayebwa group to the extent that there was a conspiracy by the disgruntled Kadaga loyalists to ally with the opposition MPs to humiliate Oulanyah and Among whose alliance always worked against Kadaga’s reelection. Gen Museveni said the Tayebwa group told him that for their survival reasons, they had a duty to support Kadaga to avoid being persecuted by Oulanyah and Among once they took over Speakership. That he assured them he would use his clout as party chairman to ensure the two Speakership bosses never get to persecute anyone basing on their previous support for the Tayebwa-Kadaga alliance.
Towards the end of his speech, Gen Museveni also threw another veiled burb at the outgoing Speaker Kadaga under whose tenure the Kololo event is supposed to have been organized. He quarreled about the day’s MCs and announcers who couldn’t pronounce newly elected MPs’ names correctly. He referenced on his blue eyed girl Lillian Aber (the Kitgum Woman MP) as one of those whose names weren’t being pronounced properly.
Saying this was unAfrican and unacceptable laziness, Gen Museveni mentioned Aleper from Karamoja as another MP whose name wasn’t correctly pronounced. He advised that such future organizers of such events at Parliament act more seriously by hiring more serious announcers who will invest adequate time to acquaint themselves with proper pronunciation of people’s names.
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