Museveni defends Among, lashes out at 'traitors'

President Museveni says Speaker Anita Among is not the problem, attacks those exposing Parliament corruption as traitors

BUKEDEA | President Museveni leaped to the defence of Speaker Anita Among on Saturday, saying those exposing corruption in Parliament are "traitors working for wrong foreigners".

Mr Museveni's decision to commission a teaching hospital in Bukedea under the auspices of Among was already a confirmation that he would back the embattled Speaker.

But few would have expected him to dig in so feriously considering that Parliament has never denied the gross expenditure of the taxpayers' sweat.

"People like [Speaker] Anita Among are not the problem," the President said.

"The real problem we have is the traitors working for foreigners."

In the wake of the exposes on social media under the banner of "Uganda Parliament Exhibition", the President met with Among at State House following which the Speaker came out thumping her chest.

Among spoke of having the full back of "my boss" and accused unnamed individuals of laying sinister plots to oust her from the Chamber of the Speaker.

They are not mistake makers but outright traitors working for wrong foreigners like homosexuals and imperialists. How can you talk so much on social media about Anita Among instead of those traitors? I'm getting intelligence and we're going to expose those traitors.

She doubled up on the alleged charges with a diatribe that accused agents of homosexuals of targeting her to leading the Eleventh Parliament in passing the anti-gay law and then climbed on the antihill in Busoga to accuse "old women in Kamuli" of wanting back the Speaker's office.

And Mr Museveni appeared to pick up from the Speaker's lips in Bukedea on Saturday.

"They are not mistake makers but outright traitors working for wrong foreigners like homosexuals and imperialists," Mr Museveni said of the social media campaigners behind rhe expose.

H"ow can you talk so much on social media about Anita Among instead of those traitors?"

Intriguingly, a section of the public, including sociopolitical commentators like Andrew Mwenda believe the documents of financial records were leaked from State House rather than Parliament.

While Museveni was good to defend the Speaker who many say has potted Parliament and got them to dance tot he tunes of the Executive, he did not comment on the allegations that one of the citizens who exercised his constitutional right had received death threats.

Instead, the President said he was getting intelligence and "we're going to expose those traitors".

The comments, however, leaves the anti-vorruotion rhetoric in Mr Museveni's government looking a lot like dry leaves being blown about in a compound.

That compound is President Museveni's Republic of Uganda.