Ex-NRM CEC member opens up on 2016 ‘agreement’ requiring Kadaga to step down for Jacob Oulanyah in 2021 Speaker race

Former National Resistance Movement (NRM) Central Executive Committee (CEC) member Capt Francis Babu has spoken out on the 2016 decision for Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to step down for her deputy Jacob Oulanyah in 2021 race.

NRM CEC’s 2016 decision that resolved the standoff between Kadaga and Oulanyah has dominated debate on the 2021 speaker race.

The matter even stole some minutes on the floor of Parliament as pro-Kadaga MPs accused government chief whip Ruth Nankabirwa of using a Whatsapp group to claim CEC had decided on Oulanyah as far as 2016.

Now, Babu, who NRM vice chairperson for Kampala, has said the decision wasn’t “a rule really.”

“The previous speaker had been there for 10 years. They said, ‘Listen, this speaker has been here for five years; let’s also give her 10 years,” Babu narrated to NBS Morning Breeze.

“It’s not a rule really. It is creating harmony within the party. [We] said ‘let us have somebody for these five years, you can be the deputy. It was in a nice atmosphere. It was done very nicely, and we got a speaker. There was no war about that.”

He added that CEC had told Oulanyah, “you are younger, you still have more time; you can come in the next Parliament.”