Questions around Speaker Among’s attack on Kadaga

On the afternoon of April 4, Mr Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, the deputy spokesperson of the National Unity Platform (NUP), did what until then had been considered unthinkable – giving Speaker of Parliament Anita Among a public telling off.

Speaking in Butende, Ibulanku Sub-county in Bugweri County, during the funeral of Ramathan Waiswa, a younger sibling of Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu, Mr Mufumbiro gave the Speaker an earful.

He told her to stop blaming the public condemnation for the profligacy of Parliament on former speaker Rebecca Kadaga.

“Here in Busoga we support Kadaga. I had to say this because most of you here fear saying so. If there are issues please do not attribute them to Kadaga. You ran roughshod over her and cast her on the side. Leave her alone. Do not blame her for wrongs that she was never party to. That is a humble request,” Mr Mufumbiro said.

A short video depicting Ms Among shifting uneasily on the ground where she was seated among other women who seemed to have been amused by Mr Mufumbiro’s comments has been doing the rounds on social media.

Among’s attacks
It would appear that Mr Mufumbiro’s audacious move was precipitated by two attacks that Ms Among made on the person of Ms Kadaga in two different speeches made in Bukedea and in Buyende districts on March 16.

A day after she claimed that the passing of the anti-homosexuality law was the reason why the spotlight had been cast on her over the alleged mismanagement of House funds, Ms Among turned her guns on Ms Kadaga.

While speaking at Apopong Primary School in Kolir, Bukedea District, she alluded to persons who wanted to “reclaim their seat as speakers”.

“The people who are fighting me. The God I serve will fight back, there are people who are saying they want to reclaim their seat as speakers. They want to reclaim a seat of a speaker. What did they leave there? What have we done?” she wondered.

Speaking at the second rally of the day, this time in Buyende District, she talked of an “old woman” who had been in the Office of the Speaker “for 20 years”.

“There are people moving around mbu [that] they are moving with candidates. Somebody was a speaker for 20 years. What did she to do for you people? Did she do anything for you?” she said.

“We want to tell you that the people who are fighting us are fighting you. And it is high time we chase away those old women. Send away those old women because they want to cause us problems, they want us [here in Buyende] to remain poor whereas for them in Kamuli get developed,” she added.

Kadaga declined to respond to the attacks.

“I do not respond to such nonsense,” Ms Kadaga told Monitor a day after Ms Among’s attacks.

People close to Ms Kadaga told Monitor that she is of the view that responding to those attacks would amount to “dignifying Ms Among”.

Mufumbiro’s advice
However, in signing out on his audacious submission in Bugweri, Mr Mufumbiro had some advice for Ms Among.

“Hon Anita Among, please do not return to Bukedi and hurl insults at her. Let Mama Kadaga be. Do your work. You guys can continue abusing and misappropriating public funds. Let her live in peace. That is our mother. She has been there for us,” he concluded, drawing wild cheers and clapping from the crowd.

Hornets’ nest stirred
Mr Mufumbiro’s comments have since stirred the hornets’ nest in Bugweri. 

The Menhya, the traditional hereditary chief of Bugweri County, and his officials are not in agreement over the management of the fallout from his submission.

On April 4, Mr Mwamadi Mugwisa, the third deputy prime minister in Obwa Menhya bwa Bugweri, wrote to Ms Among, apologising over what transpired.

“We the ministers, cultural sub-county chiefs and clan leaders of Bugweri Chiefdom submit our sincere apology for the statements made by Mr Mufumbiro… we would like to condemn it in the strongest terms possible. As Obwa Menhya we respect and embrace all leaders irrespective of their tribes, sex, age, among others,” Mugwisa said in the latter signed by 30 other officials.

Mr Mugwisa’s group also requested that Ms Among grants them an appointment to enable them meet her “face to face” and submit the apology physically. 

Monitor could not establish whether Ms Among granted Mr Mugwisa’s wish to meet his group.

However, a day after Mr Mugwisa sent out his letter, the Menhya, Prince Samuel Nkuutu Zirabamuzaale, wrote a letter disassociated the chiefdom from Mr Mugwisa’s letter.

“It has come to our knowledge that there is a letter on social media being passed on as an apology on behalf of Bugweri Chiefdom. This is not true. We distance ourselves from such issues,” the Mehya wrote.

In distancing himself from the said letter, the Menhya pointed out that this was a political matter, which the cultural institution is constitutionally barred from dabbling in. 

It is difficult to envisage how things will pan out in the kingdom.

Lingering questions
It should, however, be noted that Mr Mufumbiro’s submission only served to reignite debate on why Ms Among had in the first place made seemingly unprovoked attacks on the person of Ms Kadaga. Why? Was she responding to provocation from Ms Kadaga?

One psychologist who preferred not to be named on account of close links to the institution of Parliament argues that Ms Among has unfortunately been the subject the unfair comparisons to Ms Kadaga, with the public often passing unfair judgment.

“This constant scrutiny and juxtaposition of her approaches and work methods have resulted into the kind of aggressive behaviour that we are seeing. She has to show that she is her own person and that she too merits the office,” he argues.

Ms Among has indeed been on the weighing scale since she assumed office. One of the first persons to question her abilities was the State minister for Lands, Ms Persis Namuganza.

“In leadership… in presiding over Parliament, you cannot compare, of course. That is a fact. Of course, comparing with her (Ms Kadaga’s) leadership, this one is wanting,” Ms Namuganza said while appearing on the Baba TV political talk show, Gangamuka, on December 13, 2020.

That came as a surprise given that Ms Namuganza had been engaged in running battles with Ms Kadaga for most of the lives of the 9th and 10th Parliament.

The two women had disagreed over matters around the leadership of the traditional hereditary chiefdom of Bukono and later the Kyabazingaship. 

So bitter was the disagreement that Ms Namuganza once accused Ms Kadaga of hatching a plot to have her killed.

However, Ms Viviane Kudda, a clinical psychologist, argues without necessarily alluding to what is going on between Ms Kadaga and Ms Among that it is possible that someone who could have presided over an institution for so long could retain residual power, even control over an institution.

“People actually hold on to their previous positions or offices. They somehow move to control by proxy; I am not there, but I can talk to some of the staff there because at the end of the day I want to come out as someone who was doing a great job,” Ms Kudda says.

Could it be that Ms Kadaga continues to meddle to the chagrin of Ms Among? 

A Member of Parliament who preferred not to be named says that matters are not helped by the fact that Ms Kadaga has continued to exhibit more than casual interest in the goings on at Parliament. 

Even when her appearance at Parliament has been at a bare minimal, the interest from afar has been construed to suggest interest in the manner in which Parliament is being run.

“Ms Kadaga has in recent times been showing more and more interest in the goings on at Parliament. She has questioned some of the Bills that have been passed by the 11th Parliament, which has not gone down well with some people,” the MP says.

Days after legislators passed the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2023, which imposed payment of Value Added Tax (VAT) on diapers for all manner of people, she took to X, formerly Twitter, to point out that the proposal had been rejected by previous parliaments.

“This tax had been rejected by the 8th, 9th and 10th Parliament,” she posted.

That argument would, however, be incomprehensible in light of the fact that she had a day earlier used the same handle to commend Parliament for passing a law that paved way for the operationalisation of Islamic Banking.

Besides, Ms Kadaga is the District Woman Representative for Kamuli and a member of Cabinet which would make the goings on in Parliament very much her business.

The problem in all this, however, is that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) leadership seems to have chosen to follow in a pattern of not intervening when its leaders snipe away at each other.

History of infighting
Fights between government officials, or those holding high office, have been quite commonplace throughout NRM’s tenure, starting with the 1988 spat between now Internal Affairs minister Kahinda Otafiire and the late Jennifer Kutesa, then wife of former Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa.

There was also the March 1991 fallout between former Bush War comrades John Kazoora and Jim Muhwezi; between Jim Muhwezi and former prime minister Amama Mbabazi; former vice president Gilbert Bukenya on one side and Mr Kutesa and Mr Mbabazi on the other; between ministers Matia Kasaija and Evelyn Anite over the appointment of a new board for the Uganda Electricity Generation Company; between former police boss Gen Kale Kayihura and former Security minister Gen Henry Tumukunde and; between Gen Kayihura and Col Kaka Bagyenda, the former director general of Internal Security Organisation.

Next were the fights between the Minister for Kampala Beti Kamya and the former executive director of KCCA, Ms Jennifer Musisi; between State ministers Persis Namuganza and Aidah Nantaba; between minister Betty Amongi, and Ms Namuganza.

Others were between Ms Namuganza and Ms Kadaga; one between former governor of Bank of Uganda Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile and then Inspector General of Government Irene Mulyagonja; between the chairperson of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters Catharine Bamugemereire and then Chief Justice Bart Katureebe; between Ms Bamugemereire and former Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana; and the one between Ms Anite and Mr Rukutana.

Those were drawn-out fights, which suggests that it could still be early days in the fight between Ms Among and Ms Kadaga.