KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Anita Among has asked Members of Parliament who wish to visit their jailed colleagues Muhammad Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana at Kigo Prison, to do so.
Hon Among while chairing Thursday’s plenary told the August House that she and the rest of the MPs from the ruling NRM side were equally hurt by the manner in which the two opposition MPs were handled by security agencies during their brutal arrest.
Ssegirinya and Ssewanyana were rearrested and remanded back to Kigo prison on Wedensday slapped with fresh charges of murder, two weeks after being arraigned in court over the machete killings in the Masaka Greater Region.
However, Parliament through its Speaker Jacob Oulanyah was unhappy about the re-arrest of the MPs without notifying his office first.
Among also added her voice to the condemnation of the security agencies, and encouraged fellow MPs to show support to the detained colleagues.
“If any of you wishes to go and visit the MPs you should go and visit. Even me I can go and visit; they (Colleagues) are not yet criminals until proven guilty,” she said.
Hon Among was speaking in response to Hon Theodore Ssekikubo, who had accused the house of carrying on with its work while the opposition side is out in protest against the MPs.
Ssekikubo asked the house to first “get to the bottom of the matter,” adding that “government cannot sit and talk to itself as if everything is normal.”
In response, the Deputy Speaker told the Lwemiyaga MP that he was wrong to assume that the NRM MPs are not concerned about the plight of the detained colleagues.
“We wouldn’t want any of our members to be taken the way they were taken. Where they members need our support as a parliament we are available, but don’t push us to do what we cannot do,” she said.
“There is independence; this is parliament and court is handling the matter and we will wait for the feedback.”
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