NRM’s Okabe thrown out of Parliament

The High Court in Soroti has thrown out Serere County Member of Parliament Patrick Okabe.

Okabe, a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party was thrown out over non-compliance with electoral rules and lack of the requisite academic documents.

In a judgment delivered early today by Justice Billy Kainamura, it was established that Okabe used different names on his academic papers iwhile at Ayer in Senior Four. He was then referred to as Ocen Oliba Patrick, while during nominations he used the names Patrick Okabe.

The mismatch raised queries since there was no deed poll.

Further in his ruling Justice Kainamura said the Electoral Commission disenfranchised the petitioner, Joseph Linos Opio of the Uganda Peoples Congress, by not including his name on the ballot paper.

He othen ordered the EC to pay two thirds of the costs while Okabe was ordered to pay the remaining part of the costs to Opio.

Okabe had been sued jointly with the Electoral Commission (EC).Meanwhile, the NRM party has also lost an election petition battle in central Uganda, after court threw out Hajjati Aisha Kabanda’s petition challenging the elected Woman MP for Butambala.

Kabanda, a former Kampala Resident City Commissioner (RCC), had challenged the election of Lydia Daphine Mirembe as the Butambala Woman MP, accusing the EC of refusing to conduct a voter recount yet Mirembe had defeated her by only 67 votes.

But in a court ruling delivered Friday, the petition was thrown out, with the judge saying her petition was ‘full of lies’.