M7 Advises Disgruntled Youth to Petition NRM Tribunal over Tanga Odoi’s Son

The National Resistance Movement Party Chairperson, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has advised the youth who are dissatisfied with the results of the NRM Youth League to petition the Party’s Election Disputes Tribunal for it to determine their complaint. 

According to Museveni, his hands are tied and he doesn’t have the power to decide on the complaint by some of the youth opposed to the election of Collins Tanga. 

Collins is a son of the NRM Electoral Commission Chairperson, Dr Tanga Odoi, whom the youth accuse of having been declared the winner illegally through falsification of results.

The hotly contested race saw Tanga Collins defeating Brenda Kiconco with 1,567 votes against Brenda’s 1,355 votes. 

However, following the announcement of results the Kiconco group complained, and chaos ensued. This chaos led to the suspension of other elections, including the Vice Chairpersons of NRM Youth League for different regions, Secretary, Treasurer and also the  Youth MP Flag bearer elections. 

However, trouble surfaced again on Thursday when the Secretary General Richard Todwong announced and confirmed Collins Tanga as a Central Executive Committee Member among the Resolutions made in the National Delegates Conference. 

The Youth started booing him and shouting that they wanted Kiconco for about two minutes. 

Although President Museveni was the one next to speak, the youth continued shouting and prompting the President to tell them to shut up so that he could be heard. The youth, however, didn’t listen to his command until he guided and confirmed what Todwong had said. 

Museveni said the Tribunal, headed by Lawyer John Musiime, has the powers to determine the lawful winner, and if it finds that there were any irregularities in the elections, a fresh election would be ordered and facilitated by the National Resistance Movement. 

He went on to condemn the vote rigging, bribery, malice, corruption, and other forms of malpractice and other irregularities complained about during the entire election cycle in the National Delegates Conference. He argued that leaders should be elected based on their vision, ideas, but not because of engaging in criminal-related practices. 

He said that if it is established that some of the party members were involved in these acts of criminality, action would be taken. But the youth continued to shout at the President. 

President Museveni called the NRM Party Legal Director, Counsel  Enoch Barata, to the podium, asking him what would happen if Tanga Collins was found to have been declared illegally. 

Barata said that it would depend on what the guidelines state, as options include cancellation of the results and declaring the rightful winner and also that another option would include ordering fresh elections based on the merit of the petition. 

Museveni also reiterated his stand on peace and stability, saying that anybody who wants to cause war will be crushed.

The NRM also revealed that all the positions that were not voted for would be elected once the Tribunal has finished handling the petition. 

Other pending elections, like the polls for the chairperson of the Entrepreneurs League, will also be held once the Party Chairman, President Museveni and now the lead Investigator, concludes investigations into allegations of high levels of bribery and hiding of voters against his  Special Advisor and businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba.

Basajjabalaba was accused by the candidates, King Ceased Mulenga, Mukesh Shukla, Sanjay Tana, among others, for having hidden the voters in Dar es Salaam, Botanical Gardens in Entebbe, and Nairobi,i Kenya, which prevented them from campaigning.