Prime
Oulanyah: The big guy in wrong times
Author: Joseph Ochieno.
What you need to know:
- I honestly regret that we may never know how Jacob Oulanyah would have been judged as Speaker. He had encouraged legislators to sharpen their arguments and not their voices.
It was to become a meeting that never was. Sometime in May 2005, Badru Wegulo (RIP) and I were guests at a public gathering in Umah Hall, Lugogo. Wegulo was then chairman of the Constitutional Steering Commission of UPC, to which I was also a member. Together with Jimmy Akena and Stephen Milla (RIP), we had just returned from exile following UPC’s court victory for the return to multi-party politics in Uganda.
We decided to leave the Lugogo event early because I had to attend another function in Parliament, organised by the Northern Uganda Women’s Parliamentary Group. As we were leaving, Jacob Oulanyah noticed. He was seated at the extreme end of the front but dashed and just about caught up with us at the exit.
“Here, call me. We must meet,” he gave me his business card. As we prepared to meet, former president Milton Obote abruptly died and with that seemingly our meeting too. We communicated minimally, especially after he stood as an NRM legislator, won and later became Deputy Speaker. Following his election as Speaker last year and our WhatsApp exchanges, a meeting was due once he settled on the job. Again, it never happened.
Yet something closer to politics tied us together. During his student activism at Makerere University when he was shot by security forces, I was the on other side of the world, shouting via BBC and other networks on questions of human rights abuses and democracy in Uganda.
Somehow, despite limited interactions except those backed by extended friends, respect was mutual. But something stood out; like most of the youth of those days, he had been trained, motivated, guided and led by convictionist-values of UPC and a drive for national emancipation.
Think about it, the passion and resolve to be heard. The determination to ensure his views were heard. The almost no apparent excuse to pretend. Recall his speech during the anti-corruption walk when he told Mr Museveni, “we are all corrupt” and adding, unless we “extend the frontiers”, it is a waste of time, not a show. Love him or hate him, the guy was candid.
Yet to your surprise and following a vicious and divisive election for Speaker last year, he gave a most considered victory speech, seeking reconciliation and resolve to serve the people. Here, I honestly regret that we may never know how Jacob Oulanyah would have been judged as Speaker. He had encouraged legislators to sharpen their arguments and not their voices. That no views would be suppressed, something that would restore public confidence in the institution.
Considering that we all know the guy was a good lawyer, robust and focused, it is not surprising that I was looking forward to seeing his promise to up the quality of debate in the National Assembly.
Except, of course, that speech in which he invoked “Jesus” while praising Mr Museveni. I really struggled with that one.
Hey, brother; we do not have to agree on everything. We certainly cannot agree all the time but, we are still brothers.
Except for night dancers who shamelessly jump in broad day light; except for the hypocrites who openly tear in hate, you are a breed of a kind.
How sad then, that your illness is linked to crisis of national competency where you end up dying at a hospital abroad.
That the trip is most publicised, not because of the sympathies over your health, but rather the circumstances of cost and now; while we mourn, energy is shared with polity that includes transition and yes, that toxic word – identity politics, opportunism, hate - and the national crisis.
One thing I concluded from the activist at university, the young politician in northern Uganda, the National Assembly and eventually becoming a name beyond Entebbe, you were actually substantially a big guy in very wrong times.
Rest, my brother. You run your race and touched a few.
The writer is a pan-Africanist and former columnist with New African Magazine [email protected]
