The Speaker of Uganda’s 10th Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga, is currently locked in a do-or-die battle with her erstwhile deputy Jacob Oulanyah for the top position in the country’s legislative body.
The race has clearly rattled the country’s hitherto number 3 because, lately, she’s been speaking through both sides of her mouth.
One moment, as seen in a widely circulating clip, she declares that had it not been for her role in removing the age limit barrier, President Museveni would not have contested in the just concluded election (which effectively meant she played a lead role in determining Uganda’s leadership fate before the election). The next moment, as seen in the clip I’ve attached here, she’s crying foul that the NRM CEC made a verbal agreement with her (which she’s now reneging on) that sought to determine the next Speaker of Uganda’s Speaker five years early.
Choose a struggle, Ma’am. You can’t have your cake and eat it all the time, especially when the fate of millions is at stake.
If Kadaga had chosen her struggle carefully, who knows, she would probably be the one sitting at State House Entebbe as president. It is well known that Kadaga at some point harboured presidential ambitions (and probably still does). Indeed, many saw her as a possible next president. But at some point she seems to have shelved those ambitions in favour of entrenching a life presidency.
Now, at a time when she should be moving up the leadership ladder, she realizes that she clogged the top via her Parliament role – and now wants to cling to a job she admits she’d agreed to vacate after two terms.
Even her own supporters seem not to have a viable reason for her continued tenure, except, as I have seen them some of them assert in various circles, saying, “agira abera wo” (let her just remain there for now).
Kadaga laid her bed when she chose to betray Uganda by, in her own words, playing a key role in pertuating a life presidency. She should not cry foul when she falls victim to the same kind of machinations that have stood in the way of many Ugandans achieving their dreams. Welcome to the club, Ma’am, please take your seat alongside the oppressed majority – and do some soul searching.
Kadaga won’t be the last politician to try to do the tango with the leopard and hope to come out victor by cutting corners. Her experience should serve as a lesson to those joining the dance to the top. Stand with the oppressed Ugandan people or fall by the way side when your moment of reckoning comes, as it inevitably always does.
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