Newcomer Nsibambi eyes Deputy Speaker job

Ms Among, for instance, is understood to have sent out text messages this week to MPs asking them to back her campaign to deputise the Speaker.
But to beat the odds, sources say Mr Nsibambi is looking to rely on an alliance between FDC and National Unity Platform (NUP) MPs and some Independents.

To win Mawokota South, Mr Nsibambi forged an alliance with NUP as he openly backed the party’s presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine, and apparently bankrolled other NUP candidates in Mpigi District in the process helping the party capture the LC5 position which was taken up by 28-year-old Martin Ssejjemba who ousted NRM’s Peter Claver Mutuluza.

“There is a great understanding between Nsibambi and Mathias Mpuuga,” a source said, referring to Nyendo-Mukungwe MP-elect who is NUP’s vice president for Buganda region and also looked as a possible Leader of Opposition in the coming Parliament.
While Mr Nsibambi has a telepathic understanding with NUP leadership, Mr Nsereko seems to be at war with the party which is now the biggest in the Opposition and they are unlikely to support him.

 
Mr Nsereko’s relationship with NUP reached rock bottom during the recently concluded elections in which Mr Nsereko sparred with NUP’s Fred Nyanzi who is Mr Kyagulanyi’s elder brother. Mr Nsereko beat Mr Nyanzi, having polled 16,998 against his 15,975 which prompted Mr Nyanzi to go to court asking for a recount on grounds that his agents had been denied access to about 53 polling stations.

The magistrate consequently dismissed Mr Nyanzi’s case, calling it a fishing expedition and ordered him to pay casts, prompting Mr Nsereko to insinuate that Mr Kyagulanyi’s brother is an NRM stooge.  “Who is he [Mr Nyanzi] working for?” Mr Nsereko asked.

When asked about his intentions to stand as Deputy Speaker, Mr Nsibambi said, “I especially want to fight for the independence of the Legislature, which has on several occasions come under attack by the Executive. The principle of separation of powers must be seen to work; that’s my main mission.”

It’s going to be interesting how Mr Nsibambi, Mr Nsereko and to some extent Mr Ssemujju pitch for both deputy speakership considering that all of them are Baganda and Muslims yet regional balance is a key factor when MPs are voting to fill the two positions.

“They come from the same region and same tribe,” a source familiar with these intricacies of choosing both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker said. “That complicates matters for them.”
In 2016, there was drama in Parliament when President Museveni, for the first time, decided to oversee the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
 
In that race, Kamuli District Woman MP Rebecca Kadaga beat Lwemiyaga County MP Theodore Ssekikubo while Oulanyah got the better of Mr Nsereko.   
Mr Museveni’s decision to attend stemmed from Mr Nsereko’s refusal to heed the President’s counsel to withdraw from the Deputy Speaker race. The NRM caucus, which Mr Nsereko attended, had already agreed to support Mr Oulanyah for the Deputy Speaker’s seat.

If Mr Nsibambi throws his hat in the ring, it will mark another milestone in the political career of this veteran lawyer who was part of the legal team that represented Dr Kizza Besigye during the infamous rape trial of 2006.

It was Mr Nsibambi together with the late Sam Kalega Njuba, Wandera Ogalo, Kiyemba Mutale and Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi who secured Dr Besigye’s bail in late 2005 before Justice James Ogalo who secured bail – a move that allowed Dr Besigye to campaign for 2006 presidential elections.

Before he could start defending Dr Besigye, at the age of 24, Mr Nsibambi was made company secretary of Greenland Bank, a dominant financial institution in the 1990s that was instituted by a group of principally Muslim businessmen. Bank of Uganda closed it in 1999 after it became insolvent.
The bank’s closure was as a result of its decision to buy the embattled Ugandan Commercial Bank (UCB), Mr Nsibambi later said.

After the closure of Greenland Bank, he joined a law firm, Nyanzi, Kiboneka and Mbabazi Advocates as a partner, a firm where High Court Judge Yasin Nyanzi was once a partner. He worked there for seven years, but he later he was ousted because of his association with Dr Besigye.

“The firm got a lot of pressure [because some people associated it with Kizza Besigye]. Clients were withdrawing instructions. Other partners were not politicians like me. We sat and agreed that I should leave. When I left, I formed a firm called Nsibambi and Nsibambi Advocates,” Nsibambi who has been a lecturer of law at Makerere University where he taught the likes of Norbert Mao, Jacob Oulanyah, Maj Gen James Mugira and the late Brig Noble Mayombo, told the media.

Though he was into politics, Mr Nsibambi was sceptical about engaging in elective politics. “I have been so much involved with politicians. I actually realise that most of them are jobseekers. There has been a deliberate attempt to devalue leaders and leadership in this country. When you look at leaders, you seem to see people who are selfish, job seekers and conmen,” the soft-spoken Nsibambi once told The Observer in an interview in 2016.

While he kept off elective politics, Nsibambi got into chicken rearing in Nkozi, Mawokota South, a project he believed would improve the livelihoods of his people.
Mr Nsibambi and his friends thought of forming an economic model village in Nkozi, using poultry farming as the launch pad.

“We are offering 100 to 200 chicks per family. We have about 140 people who have registered. We put up model chicken house structures; we provide the chicks and we provide the general guidance and medicine. Thereafter, each of these farmers is going to open a bank account in Centenary bank. We expect to have a total of 50,000 birds in that model village,” Nsibambi said back then.

“So, why do I waste my money and energy on our politics that is full of treachery when I can cause a change in the lives of other people?” he queried.
Of course, Mr Nsibambi has since changed his mind. He is an MP-elect having defeated NUP’s Joel Mirembe Nsubuga, NRM’s Susan Nakawuki and Independent John Bosco Lubyayi and now he wants to go for deputy speakership.

He says he expects support from the legislators of his party FDC and NUP, whose leader Robert Kyagulanyi backed him during the campaigns. He also hopes to attract the legislators of DP, Independents and what he calls moderate NRM MPs.