New Speaker Anita Among receives symbol of office from President Museveni |
KAMPALA, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Africa has a new female speaker of Parliament in the person of Anita Among in Uganda.
The Women MP for Bukanda had been the deputy Speaker of the country’s legislature, working under the leadership of the late Jacob Oulanyah.
Her election was done at a special parliamentary sitting at the Kololo grounds overseen by Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo.
Anita Among was the candidate of the ruling National Resistance Movement, NRM, and was largely expected to win.
She joins other female speakers like those in The Gambia, South Africa and Rwanda.
Her predecessor, Jacob Oulanyah, died of cancer on March 20 in a Seattle hospital in the US at the age of 57.
President Yoweri Museveni issued a statement via his social media handles to officially confirm the death.
The late Oulanyah was a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement and had risen to the Speaker of Uganda’s eleventh Parliament on May 24, 2021, after defeating the former Speaker Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga. — NNN-AGENCIES