By Mulengera Reporters
Norbert Mao has revealed that he is emotionally ready and prepared to move on and lead life even without being a member of Museveni’s cabinet. He says he is ready to hand over the government car and keys to his office plus the files and move on to do something else.
He says he is emotionally prepared, as it ought to be, to move on and comfortably live his life whether he wins to become Speaker for the 12th Parliament or not. Speaking at a recent media event at DP headquarters along Balintuma Road near Nakulabye, Mao said he will be handing over to the Justice Ministry PS Robert Kasande in May and thereafter ask his wife Beatrice Mao to drive him home to their Lubowa residence in their private car.
Mao says he knew these would be some of the inevitable consequences the day he announced readiness to run for Speakership and he won’t have any problem regardless of what happens. “You can’t be both a Minister and Speaker. You have to let go of one to get the other,” Mao said.
He further explained that in the event that he doesn’t win to become Speaker, he will serve as a back bencher Member of Parliament in order to represent his voters for Loro-Pece Division who deployed him on 15th January. Mao said as a back bencher, he will be sitting on the opposition side because that is where his DP ordinarily belongs.
In the same address, Mao advised fellow leaders to become humble and behave like people who know that there is no need to ‘super glue’ on public offices because one’s occupation of such seats is temporary and never permanent.
He also dismissed claims that Gen MK had endorsed the incumbent Speaker Anita Among and he also rejected the recent PLU SG letter David Kabanda signaling PLU-minded MPs to vote for the incumbent. Mao urged his supporters to disregard such as mere ‘social media rumors’ because the MK he knows fearlessly puts his views in writing and gets the same posted on his X handle.
Mao asserted that he is getting ‘support from unexpected quarters’ and also explained why many new MPs are justified to believe he is the one Gen MK prefers because of the fact that he and his wife are some of the very few lucky people Gen MK flew to Kigali to attend his private birth day party. He said even Gen Salim Saleh has understandably been construed to be for him because he deputizes him as Chairman for the Salim Saleh Development Foundation.
Mao also deputizes Saleh in the Uganda Development Forum. He said he believes this is why a lot of people think that he is the man Saleh prefers even when the correct position is that the President’s brother has no role in such political contestations, which Mao said are some of the things on which only Gen Museveni is going to have the last word through the NRM caucus. He said much as they have a lot of common ground with Gen Saleh, having been close friends for 30 years while doing joint charity causes, the man from Namunkekera won’t be playing any overt role in who becomes Speaker.
Mao also said he was very optimistic he will be next Speaker because he is leaving no stone unturned. He also scorned his Deputy President Mukasa Mbidde whose overt support for Anita Among he said must be understood in the contest of someone who has just lost an election and is badly looking for opportunity. He challenged Mbidde to articulate clear reasons why he is backing Anita Among as opposed to merely saying that the DP President can’t get votes to become Speaker in such a Movement-dominated Parliament.
He likened Mbidde to people who centuries ago chose the side of Mukajjanga (the chief executioner who enforced Kabaka Mwanga’s order to kill Uganda Martyrs), while denouncing the Christian Martyrs because, as of that time, he was invincible and had so much powers to the extent nobody ever saw him ever becoming vulnerable. He said time will sort out things as Mbidde will in the end eat a humble pie and come crawling to him while asking for favors after he has been sworn in as the Speaker of the 12th Parliament.
Mao, in whose favor Andrew Mwenda wrote a long missive over the weekend under his ‘Last Word’ column in the Independent magazine, also praised himself for creating a lot of media buzz around the Speakership race. He said this is the most discussed Speakership race in Uganda’s history and this is all because of his being in the race. He said he wanted to become Speaker out of necessity because his pedigree is the type Uganda needs at this point in time. He added that his bid is morally-inspired, which is why even God would vote for him if He were to be among those voting at Kololo come May.
He said those determined to block him from becoming Speaker became nervous immediately after he got nominated to vie for Loro-Pece MP Seat in Gulu City. He said such people, who he didn’t name, invested a lot of money to procure his political humiliation but his voters defied all that though he admitted this (Loro-Pece) was one of the hardest political battles of his life.
He also claimed that Acholi MPs who initially vehemently decampaigned him have since de-escalated after coming under a lot of pressure from voters in their constituencies. He said should he not succeed becoming Speaker, Acholi voters have made it clear such treacherous MPs will politically have to be ‘castrated’ at the subsequent elections.
He said every MP who doesn’t vote for him will regret and live with condemnation for the rest of their lives because ‘it’s clear the situation at Parliament needs to be urgently fixed’ and the people of Uganda want to have a better-led legislature. He said there is a problem at Parliament and he is the solution and there is a well-known moral question at Parliament, to which he is the only answer. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
