The Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among has declined a letter from Nandala Mafabi, the FDC Secretary General in which he sought to replace Kira Municipality legislator Hon Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda as the opposition party’s chief whip in Parliament.
Nandala in a letter addressed to the Speaker last week announced on behalf of FDC that the party had resolved to replace Ssemujju with Mawokota South MP Yusuf Nsibambi.
Now in a letter dated August 16 responding to Mafabi, Ms Among stated that she received a petition from FDC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) members saying Ssemujju’s replacement was “done in violation of the internal rules and procedures of the party.”
Ms Among who herself is a former FDC stalwart turned yellow says the disgruntled party members argued that there wasn’t any decision of NEC or delegates conference upon which a decision would be made and that Mafabi’s action was illegal.
She added that said Mafabi did not refer to any party meeting held by FDC to replace Ssemujju and therefore she cannot honour her request going forward.
“I am therefore unable to affect your communication until these matters raised by the petitioners have been resolved and a communication made to that effect to avoid legal consequences of the same and disruption of Parliament business,” Ms Among stated.
Yusuf Nsibambi was expected to take over the role of the FDC party chief whip, but with the Speaker’s response to Nandala, it remains to be seen if the FDC will have to summon NEC members for a formal suspension of Ssemujju.
Ssemujju himself had last week protested his sacking from the position of Chief Whip, saying he was elected by the FDC National Executive Committee but later argued that the position itself comes with nothing that the title.
“Amuriat and Nandala have no right to sack me like they are purporting. If they want it so much, I will give it to them. They didn’t even have to sack me like they are purporting because my major responsibility is to represent the people of Kira Municipality,” a soft-spoken Ssemujju said last week.
“They were already uncomfortable. And by the way, it started much earlier, even before the elections. Amuriat has been so incompetent that he even fears competition from his own people. I think now he will become a very big leader now that Ssemujju, who has been disturbing him, is no longer the whip, and I congratulate him,” he added.
This development comes in the aftermath of the ongoing clashes inside the war-torn political party where Ssemujju accused Nandala and the FDC President Patrick Oboi Amuriat of accepting ‘dirty money’ from the State House in the run-up to the 2021 general elections.