Deputy speaker of Parliament Jacob says President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has never ordered him to push through bills, except once when his boss Rebecca Kadaga reported her for playing with a bill and refusing to call a vote.
Kadaga and Oulanyah are both seeking the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) endorsement for the speaker job.
Oulanyah has patiently waited for Kadaga to complete her 10 years as ‘agreed’ during an NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting in 2016.
Kadaga now says she never agreed to make way for Oulanyah in 2021.
Last week, Kadaga launched her third term speaker election bid with attacks on Oulanyah.
Besides responding to Kadaga’s allegations, Oulanyah swore the president had never called to order him to push through bills.
“In 10 years, the president has never called me [to direct me to push through bills]. I think he called me once, that I had refused to call a vote,” said Oulanyah.
The deputy speaker narrated how he had then steered debate, referred the matter to a committee, and pushed voting to another day.
“I went home and the president called me at 10:30pm.”
The following morning, Oulanyah would leave his office and wait in the VIP lounge to dodge Museveni’s calls.
The committee chairperson would later tell him they had failed to agree on the matter, and he encouraged that chairperson to report to the House that they had failed to agree.
Opposition MP Muwanga Kivumbi would later save the day when he suggested that the matter be put to a vote, which the presiding chair agreed to do.
“That’s the only time the president called me, not to direct me, but because someone had reported that I was playing with the Bill.”
