Kilak County MP Gilbert Olanya Oland, who has just been re-elected on the FDC ticket, on Monday spoke to online Luo TV and made it clear that he won’t be stampeded into declaring support for anyone.
In the short interview, Olanya disputed the circumstances under which his colleagues Martin Ojara Mapenduzi and Anthony Akol (who chairs Acholi Parliamentary Group) last week recorded and released videos endorsing Anita Among, the incumbent Speaker, who days earlier had been cleared by CEC to keep her position.
The alleged CEC decision has since been disputed by some of the senior leaders from inside NRM, including Minister Chris Baryomunsi and Lydia Wanyoto. The duo was CEC members until September last year when they were voted out by NRM delegates at Kololo.
Olanya says the two are senior legislators who ‘risk being embarrassed’ for their premature endorsement of Anita Among. He told the Luo TV interviewer that now being February, there is no reason for anyone to get excited and begin rushing to endorse anyone for Speaker’s elections which are slated for May. He says between now and then, something unexpectedly can change and new dynamics emerge. That someone very good, connected and well placed might plunge into the race and everything else changes.
Without declaring direct support for Nobert Mao, a fellow Acholi, Olanya said there is still more than enough time for legislators to make up their mind and decide who they will be voting for. He wondered why his two colleagues could rush to declare support for Among before all potential candidates declare their interest in the job. He says some unexpected candidate with better credentials might emerge and demonstrate how he or she is better suitable for Speakership.
He claimed that his two colleagues might have been prompted by a phone call from someone he didn’t name, requiring them to record videos registering their endorsement. He stressed that he wasn’t prepared to jump onto the band wagon doing what the two colleagues did because ‘they may end up very much embarrassed.’
He said the duo’s endorsement of Anita Among might have been ‘motivated’ by something he wasn’t comfortable disclosing. “They are dancing to the tunes of some other person, which isn’t good for them as leaders because MPs are adults who shouldn’t be acting to please some people.’
He said when time comes, his decision will be guided by desire to raise the pedigree of the Ugandan Parliament by ensuring that the Speaker who gets to preside over for the next five years ‘is a person of integrity’ and capable of winning international respect for Uganda, in the league of Anita Among’s predecessor Jacob Oulanyah, who fell ill and died in March 2022 barely a year into the job.
Olanya said that the fallen Speaker was a high reputation person whose global respect and integrity had ‘caused the rest of the world to admire Uganda’ within his first five months. Olanya demonstrated clear unwillingness to rush into endorsing Anita Among like his two colleagues did last week.
Many construed the two legislators’ endorsements as a panicky response to Norbert Mao who days earlier had made out a case, characteristically ably articulating why Uganda deserves much better than the current Speaker has offered thus far. He spoke of leading a Parliament that is more accountable and truly people-centered than has been the case since his best friend Jacob Oulanyah’s departure.
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