Museveni: Police should find those saying Oulanyah was killed

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Museveni has directed police detectives to clampdown on speculators perpetrating harmful propaganda that Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah did not die of natural causes.

Oulanyah, 56, reportedly died of cancer of the colon on Sunday March 20th, 2022 from a hospital in Seattle, United States of America where he was flown on Museveni’s directive on February 3.

Prior to his demise, several social media posts emerged that Oulanyah had died and that Government was concealing his death. Shortly, after the death, his father Nathan Okori told mourners that his son had been poisoned.

Okori explained his son confided in him in a phone conversation before being flown out for specialized treatment that he was poisoned.

While addressing MPs at Kololo on Friday, Museveni said perpetrators of false rumours must be arrested and prosecuted.

The President who was speaking at the closures of the extra ordinary sitting of Parliament to elect a Speaker, explained that Oulanyah did not die from a private home, and that records show he had been in many hospitals in Dubai before being referred from Mulago Cancer Institute to USA.

Museveni did not name the alleged perpetrators of the false information but kept on referring to some leaders in the country. Spreading of false information in Uganda is a criminal offense punishable by law.

On Tuesday, legislators from Acholi sub region where the deceased hailed from tasked government to explain the Oulanyah’s cause of death. The lawmakers wondered why their high profile sons who attain higher positions in the government die peculiarly.

The legislators from the Greater North Parliamentary Forum northern Uganda met president Museveni on Thursday at State House Nakasero to lobby him to influence ring-fencing of the he position of the Speaker. But, the NRM caucaus declined to endorse the proposal.

Museveni told the MPs that Oulanyah was a uniting factor in northern Uganda and that the legislators in the area should embrace the spirit of unity. He blamed the rushed elections on copy and paste constitutional laws which he said were imported from Europe.

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