Wednesday, 4 October 2017

How come we failed to see that Kadaga(the pope’s girl) was a Wolf all along: The recent Parliament fracas demonstrated Speaker Kadaga’s low level of judgment and moral competence




Uganda’s Speaker of parliament and Prime Minister meet the Pope

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.ug/2012/12/ugandas-speaker-of-parliament-and-prime.html

Roman Catholics and the Spirit of Fornication : Uganda's Catholic Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga thanks Ancestral devils for helping her Win the position of speaker of Parliament

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.ug/2016/05/roman-catholics-and-spirit-of.html 

Comment
I have always looked at opposition MPs praising speaker Kadaga and laughed. They talked about how ethical and consistent  she is despite being a staunch Museveni supporter . They were shocked last week when she allowed  Museveni’s SFG soldiers to unleash terror on them. It is very difficult to consistently work with president museveni for over 25 years and still retain your integrity. Speaker Kadaga used a very low sense of judgment to dismiss MPs within a parliamentary sitting. She should have dismissed them and adjourned the sitting , the next day, the security could have prevented them from entering parliament.  Kadaga is likely to go down in the annals of Uganda’s history as the worst speaker this country has ever had. She has removed all doubts that she is a rubber stamp of the executive and particularly president Museveni.

Speaker Kadaga delivered MPs’ independence to the wolves

 

 
Written by Pius Muteekani Katunzi 
 
The distasteful events that took place in parliament last week exposed the speaker’s lack of will to protect and defend her members.
And to protect does not mean she has to be clothed in armoured equipment and surround herself with unpleasant armed personnel. Whereas the speaker routinely chairs parliamentary debates, she/he is supposed to embody the independence of the House.
 Image result for Kizito Michael George, Kadaga meets Pope

Being a multiparty parliament, the speaker ought to exhibit impartiality in her conduct. In her case, Kadaga is the champion of the House as well as its servant!
In the past, Kadaga had shown some commitment to defending the rights and interests of MPs. She defended the NRM rebel MPs who the party wanted expelled from the House.
When some Ugandans ran to court to block parliament from probing and debating the Shs 6bn given to some government officials for winning a court case that delivered $700 million from oil companies, the speaker defied Justice Steven Kavuma’s “stupid” order.
The speaker regarded this order as an affront on the independence of the legislature and that it offended the doctrine of separation of powers.
In all this, Kadaga drew inspiration from the most celebrated example set by Britain’s William Lenthall in 1642, who defied an order from King Charles I to hand over five members of the House of Commons, saying he only took instruction from parliament: “I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me.”
Therefore, with such examples of stellar performance, until last week, there was no doubt that Kadaga was in charge of the House.
In many ways, the speaker is to blame for the fracas that arose last week. Three MPs rose and said Minister Ronald Kibuule had entered the chambers with a gun.
The first MP, William Ngozhu, was rudely asked to sit down when he raised the issue. Medard Lubega Sseggona then requested that the speaker suspends the House for some minutes so that they can check the members for the gun.
Then MP Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda told the speaker that she could even be assisted with camera footage to ascertain that Kibuule, indeed, had a gun. Ssemujju told the speaker that Kibuule had threatened to kill him that day.
Still, the speaker refused to do anything. It is from this point that members decided to take charge of their security by attempting to check Kibuule for the gun.
It is not clear why the speaker was protective of the minister at the expense of the dignity and safety of the House. A melee ensued and, in seconds, chairs and other items were flying.
The speaker also could have saved the subsequent fracas if she had found that some members’ conduct deserved punishment such as suspension from the sitting.
She should have meted out this punishment on that day (Tuesday) according to the rules, and not carry forward her action to the following day. It appears the speaker knew that the affected MPs would defy her orders to withdraw from the chambers.
Before the Wednesday sitting began, plainclothes security operatives were seen accessing the parliamentary building from the president’s office side. They would later come in handy after the speaker suspended 25 legislators and ordered their immediate eviction from the House.
The inspector general of police, Gen Kale Kayihura, chest-thumped in the aftermath of the events that he had planned the invasion of parliament. It appears the orders were to manhandle all opposition MPs, whether they were suspended or not.
Otherwise, what explains that Nabilah Naggayi, Matthias Mpuuga, Ssemujju and many others who had not been suspended were brutally thrown out by these very security operatives? It appears the orders were to harass and brutalize all those who were opposed to the bill on lifting the presidential age limit. It was not about restoring order in the House.
In an interview published by Saturday Vision of September 30, 2017, Kadaga denies deploying SFC operatives, or even having knowledge of their presence. She says the Sergeant at Arms sought assistance from them (this contradicts Kayihura’s utterances).
But then in the same interview, Kadaga asks: “So, if there is danger to parliament, we should leave it? We should allow people to be killed? Parliament to be burnt? People to approach and overrun parliament…” This is a contradictory stand.
If the intention was to ensure safety and security of the House, then the speaker should have suspended the House on Tuesday when members complained about the minister who possessed a gun. Kadaga needs to pick Lenthall’s approach.
She is a servant of the MPs, and she does not have to fuse the interests of the executive with those of the legislature. It is difficult to serve two masters equally and comfortably at the same time.
The author is a former parliamentary reporter.