Speaker Oulanyah death: Fallout reveals scramble for national cake

President Museveni (left) hands the Coat of Arms to Jacob Oulanyah after he was elected Speaker in May last year. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • The Acholi Parliamentary Group had insisted they get the position of Speaker of Parliament as of right, since the President is from the west, Vice President is from the east and Prime Minister is from the west.

When Jacob Oulanyah, the fallen Speaker of Parliament, was hastily taken to the US on the Uganda Airlines Airbus A330-800neo to get the treatment, it raised a lot of ethnic undertones.

Following his death last Sunday, there was some expectation that it could create a moment of national grief and unity, but it has instead prompted a bulge of ethnic undercurrents.  

In the aftermath of his death, the Acholi Parliamentary Group, where Oulanyah hailed from, had insisted that the speakership should be ring-fenced for Members of Parliament (MP) coming from their sub-region, but what has eclipsed that has been the speech by Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo on Wednesday at Oulanyah’s vigil in Muyenga, a leafy suburb of Kampala.

“Your ethnic leader, you who were demonstrating, was transported in a presidential jet to Germany using public transport he wasn’t entitled to,” said Justice Owiny-Dollo. “You didn’t demonstrate. Is it because Oulanyah is an Acholi? Is it because Oulanyah doesn’t speak your language? Only a wicked person can fight a person who is fighting for his life. Only a super wicked can fight the dead.  Actually, for us, it’s an abomination.”   

It seems Justice Owiny-Dollo was referring to the trip Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi made last year to get treatment from Germany. 

The Kabaka, visibly frail, flew out of the country after the August 5, 2021, meeting between himself and President Museveni in which they had sought to resolve the standoff over government’s controversy proposal to scrap the mailo land tenure system, something Mengo opposes. 

“The President couldn’t discuss much with the Kabaka since he [Kabaka] is sick. He has instead advised that he should go to Germany for treatment,” a source within State House told this writer at the time.   

Buganda Katikkiro (prime minister) Charles Peter Mayiga released a statement on Friday, denying the Chief Justice’s claim that the Kabaka used a presidential jet when he went for treatment.

“Death causes shock, grief and anguish and it often makes emotions run high. That is why it is required of all of us to be calm during difficult times like this,” Mayiga said without mentioning Justice Owiny-Dollo’s name. “Just for the record, however, when the Kabaka flew to Germany in August 2021, he didn’t fly by the presidential jet, but KLM airlines.” 

On March 15,  Justice Owiny-Dollo, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Anita Among and Democratic Party (DP) president general Nobert Mao went to the US to visit Oulanyah in his final days, but it seems in his speech the Chief Justice was referring to demonstrations that took place when the former Speaker had just landed in the US.   

When media reports emerged that government had spent close to Shs2 billion on transporting Oulanyah to the US, a small group of Ugandans in Seattle voiced their dissatisfaction by demonstrating outside the Seattle hospital. 

The National Unity Platform (NUP) — a leading Opposition party which is chiefly dominated by Baganda, a southern ethnic group — came out to support the protests.

“Join our colleagues in Seattle in a peaceful protest against the Uganda dictatorship flying one of their corrupt and brutal officials for medical treatment in the US while the regime has rundown hospitals in Uganda,” a message on NUP’s official Facebook page read. 

NUP has insisted that the demonstration was intended to highlight government wastage, but Acholi leaders believe that Buganda has no national leaders at the moment.

“This is not the Buganda I know. I have defended Buganda among my people: That these people are not representing Buganda. These are wicked wayward people who aren’t representing Buganda. But what pains me is that Baganda like you have not spoken out to condemn this. I have not seen this anywhere. And people are judging you by the actions of the evil people: I ask a question is this politics? You will go to Omoro and see the number of people who will come to weep for Oulanyah. You think they will forget this?” Justice Owiny-Dollo asked. 

“Where are national leaders like Kintu Musoke [President Museveni’s former premier who typified gentleman politics in Uganda]. Where are the Bidandi Ssali’s of Buganda?” Owiny-Dollo, who represented Agago County both in the Constituent Assembly (CA) and Sixth Parliament asked, referring to one of the NRM founders who served as the minister of Local Government in the 1990s and rejected federal system which is cherished by Mengo. 

“My brothers in Uganda let me say this: The most contributory factor in bringing northern Uganda to its knees was that we allowed, or failed to restrain people, who should not have been opinion leaders in northern Uganda to take over positions of opinion leadership and they led us into the abyss which we are struggling to get out of.”

While at the burial of singer Mathias Walukagga’s father on Thursday, NUP principal Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu made Oulanyah’s death a cornerstone of his speech.

“While we are burying our friend’s father, Speaker’s body is still detained in the hospital,” Kyagulanyi, who goes by the moniker Bobi Wine, said. “They put him on the plane and they used Shs1.5b just to transport him to the hospital. Where they took him – the doctors and the minister of Health [Ruth Aceng] informed us they didn’t touch him. They didn’t treat him at all.” 

With NUP not performing well in northern Uganda during the 2021 general election, politicians from Acholi have predicted, following the recent altercations, that the trend isn’t about the change.  

“I can say with utmost political certainty that after USA Seattle demos that was misunderstood and the subsequent death of Speaker Oulanyah, the one-man war of Nobert Mao and the later remarks of the CJ, NUPs political fate in the north is just awaiting burial,” Samuel Odonga Otto, the former Aruu South MP, said.

Mao, a former Gulu Municipality MP, who had been engaged in an online war of words with NUP supporters, accusing them of being insularly-minded, supported Justice Owiny-Dollo with a tweet. “Thank you, Hon Chief Justice. Let the de-humanisation of political discourse being championed by #OneManArmy continue in earnest. The north is still paying for having looked the other way as their children in the army came home with looted property. We need moral courage now!” Mao said.

The decision by NRM, which has an overwhelming majority in Parliament, not to ring-fence the speakership position when they seconded Anita Among, who comes from the east, was a direct rebuke to the Acholi Parliamentary Group.

The group had insisted, as part of sharing the national cake, they should get that position as of right, since the President is from the west, vice president Jessica Alupo is from the east, and prime minister Robinah Nabbanja is from the west. 

What they didn’t mention is that the Chief Justice, who heads an arm of government, is from Acholi.  “We need the position for speakership to be preserved strictly for someone coming from Acholi sub-region. Our brother was voted for five years, he served for only nine months. Let the remaining years be completed by someone coming from that place,” Gilbert Olanya, the Kilak South MP, who belongs to the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), said before MPs who come from the north threatened to boycott the speakership poll on Friday.

Acholi MPs are also aggrieved by the decision to replace Lt Gen Paul Lokech, the former Deputy Inspector General of Police who died last year, with Geoffrey Tumusiime Kasigazi who comes from the west.

Some asked government to explain why a few of their people who are holding government positions are mysteriously passing on.