By Mulengera Reporters
On Thursday, a group of MPs from Teso led by Kumi Municipality MP Silas Aagon convened a tearful news conference at Parliament where they showed vulnerability and cried before reporters while calling on the President YK Museveni to have a change of heart and begin to treat former Speaker Anita Among more magnanimously.
They claimed that during their visit to her Nakasero home moments before convening the media event, Anita Among had lamented to them how she is going through lots of agony-physical, emotional and financial. That she spoke of being sick suffering from very unforgiving blood clots and also of being broke since her bank accounts, including those in Stanbic bank and Centenary, had been frozen. She allegedly told them that, because all the accounts to which she is a signatory had been rendered unusable, even work at her Bukedea Comprehensive School had become paralyzed since teachers and other service providers can’t be paid anymore.
The MPs implored Museveni, who the country earlier on castigated for being magnanimous to the former Speaker for so long, intervenes, to forgive her and order the investigating agencies currently pursuing her to back off and let her be. Some MPs claimed Anita Among was harmless and had done a lot for the NRM during her short stint in the ruling party and deserves to be forgiven.
Some of the MPs claimed that, as the 2nd national vice chairperson for the NRM, Anita Among was too big to go through the humiliation the Bukedea Woman MP has endured in the past couple of weeks. It was also implied that there will be a political price for the ruling party to pay in Teso sub region at subsequent elections if Gen Museveni doesn’t have a change of heart and begin to treat Anita Among well.
Some speakers at the event asserted that it was unfair for Anita Among to be deprived of her right to represent the people of Bukedea, who have been electing her since 2016, after ceasing to be Speaker of Parliament. MPs demanded that movement restrictions on her get relaxed so that the once very powerful Anita Among is able to go and seek appropriate medical attention-and to also array fears that she might die out of stress, depression, low blood pressure problems and the blood clotting condition she recently contracted. It’s also true that, because of such pro-Anita Among messaging, there is a rise in anti-MK sentiments amongst community members in Teso.
UGANDANS UNPERSUADED:
Going by online social media users’ reactions to the videos of the Teso MPs’ press conference, it was clear Ugandans don’t have much sympathies for Anita Among who they believe used the platform and power that came with being Speaker to destroy many people, as opposed to supporting and propping them up.
More controversially, many social media users asserted she had all along been indifferent each time opposition MPs like Semujju Nganda raised a red flag about human rights violations and the executive’s refusal to comply with due process legal provisions. Ugandans reminded the Teso MPs, who some castigated for being mere opportunists and fortune-hunters trying to ride on the Among plight to get media publicity and catch the President’s eye, that in her hey days, the former speaker never showed any concern to the similar plight political prisoners like Dr. Kizza Besigye, Obed Lutale and Bobi Wine’s assistants were going through for years.
Some mockingly reminded Teso MPs of the recent threats Anita Among made, weeks before her downfall started, to the effect that she was going to wallop the opposition. Some referenced the iron fist approach with which she led Parliament, including using her power as Speaker to persecute/destroy fellow leaders like Persis Namuganza, Theodore Sekikubo, Francis Zaake, LoP Joel Ssenyonyi and others while propping up and pampering her sycophants like Solomon Silwanyi, Ojara Mapenduzi etc.
Ironically, many of these former henchmen have since pivoted and defected to the PLU universe, the very group which her tormentor-in-chief Gen MK leads. Some commentators on X, Facebook, Tik Tok and YouTube reminisced on the impunity with which Anita Among shut up Ssenyonyi over his COSASE investigations into the chaos at Uganda Airlines-and how she used crude tactics to lock him out of the Parliaentary Commission meetings.
They also reflected on the viciousness with which she caused people’s children and Uganda’s youths who dared use Tik Tok to criticize her during the Parliament Exhibition protests, to be arrested and locked up or detained at Luzira and Kitalya for weeks. Much earlier on, the same Anita Among had viscously descended on a Busoga kingdom Minister who for days had to languish in Kira police cells. This was after the Busoga Minister was portrayed to her as someone who had remotely been connected to a group of young boys who had been criticising her conduct on social media platforms like Facebook and X.
While reflecting on the abusive treatment and humiliation women who dared stand against her in Bukedea endured at every election cycle, some Ugandan online commentators disputed the MPs‘ claim that the voters of her district had a right to effective representation which the ongoing gagging of Among had deprived them of. There was also reference to the huge political price the likes of Theodore Sekikubo paid in the last January elections simply because they dared stand up to Anita Among’s way of leading Parliament at the peak of her power. Some social media users chipped in on the infamous ‘make sure those Bagandas don’t get the numbers’ comment, that was during the coffee bill vote.
Ugandans on social media demanded that instead of wasting time pleading with the President, the Teso MPs should merely demand for a speedy and fair trial so that their cracking Anita Among gets the opportunity to prove her innocence through the proper courts of law process. The social media commentators also demanded to know why the same Teso MPs were totally quiet on human rights violations victims like Erias Lukwago, Kizza Besigye and the Bobi Wine assistants who have suffered for longer and have been brutalized much more than has been the case with Anita Among.
The MPs were also focused on the viciousness with which their sister politically destroyed Rebecca Kadaga, after deceptively convincing herself that her political power and money would last forever. The MPs were also asked to stop over inflating Anita Among’s political importance and influence since Gen Museveni and the ruling NRM party had been winning elections in Teso even before she officially joined the party in 2020. They were also advised to take her to Mulago or get her doctors from any Ugandan public facility since it had always been her view that all Ugandan hospitals were doing very well.
Some commentators also advised that Anita Among be encouraged and allowed to carry her personal cross because she is in problems not because of where she comes from but because of her personal conduct and failure to engage in personal restraint for the period she served as Speaker of Parliament. The MPs were assured that their Anita Among will never become powerful again since it was increasingly clear that the train long left the station and that the managers of the NRM bus were already focusing on the post-Anita Among Bukedea.
Some curious Ugandans also demanded to know why it should be these individual MPs from Teso and other fortune-seeking volunteers to talk yet Anita Among’s own husband Moses Magogo, with whom they enjoyed everything, was conspicuously silent instead of leading the charge against his wife’s perceived political persecution. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
