By Constance Ichuma Asere
There has been a lot of information spreading about the death of the fallen Speaker of Parliament ,the Rt.Hon.Jacob L’Okori Oulanya who passed away in a highly reputable hospital in Seattle ,United States of America ( USA) where he was receiving treatment from at the time of his death since February 4,2022.
According to Oulanya’s father ,Nathan Okori in one of the interviews on a local tv ,he claims that his son was poisoned after being voted in as Speaker of Parliament and that was according to what his son told him .This claim alone doesn’t only come from his father but even the leaders from the Acholi region do demand for the exact cause of death of the son of the Soil from government of Uganda .
However, Government through the Minister of ICT and National Guidance in the Cabinet of Uganda while addressing the media at Uganda Media Centre ,Kampala on Monday , dismissed the claim that the deceased was poisoned and called upon the public to wait till Government releases a post mortem.
Museveni said this in his speech after the election of Anita Among as the new Speaker of the 11th Parliament after the death of Oulanya.He adds that he was resisting to speak about the guess work about Oulanya’s and told the public that the police is coming to hunt down all the fellows who claim that the deceased was poisoned.
The President says that Oulanya had been battling a long illness which he ( Museveni) got to know about towards the end of last year where he had travelled to one of the highly reputable hospitals in Dubai for treatment .
Anita Among was therefore chosen as the new Speaker of Parliament by MPs after she bagged 401 votes of the 468 MPs who voted while her opponent from the Opposition of Parliament ,Asuman Basalirwa the Bugiri Municipality MP bagged 66 votes and 1 was invalid.
In a similar way there were also roars from the public about the fast process of replacing Oulanya even before his body arrives in the country .However according to the article 82 , there is no business that can go on without the presence of a new Speaker that explains why the process of electing a new Speaker was put in place .
In a lay man’s language, Oulanya was a Top official in the country therefore his body has to be taken to Parliament of Uganda so that legislators pay final respect to him.