Mpuuga said politicians by their very nature are self-centered afraid naturally to widen their scope of knowledge, learn and unlearn good and bad traits.
He said it’s the cardinal duty of the traditional mass media to put them all in check. He said as leader of opposition in parliament, he will endeavor to nurture credible leaders whose work must be demonstrated and accounted for in broad daylight.
“For us as the opposition, we have our challenges, we’re trying to work on the small fights, the superiority battles, we’re handling them intellectually, we shall handle them, they don’t scare us…The time to work in the dark is no more, and we want to use the media as the truth bearer of our activities after all we claim to be on the accountability and service contract. We want to account for every inch of space and time we shall occupy in that place [parliament] …,” said Mpuuga.
He said in 2022, his shadow cabinet will undergo some orientation to sharpen their debating skills, behaviour, and performances so that they can work for the masses instead of themselves.
Mpuuga replaced Forum for Democratic Change’s (FDC) Betty Aol Ocan as LoP after his party, the National Unity Platform won majority opposition seats in the 11th parliament.
Mpuuga said Uganda’s youngest population in the world, puts sky-high expectations on leaders to offer better societal governance and development. He said in his last six months as LoP, he has learnt a lot.
Before as a younger politician, he said, he had bigger ambitions and expectations but has now learnt to use every available platform and opportunity to better the society even when the beneficiaries may not necessarily be the current political generation.
“Out there expectations of the young people we lead are different and we must act to make sure we don’t disappoint. We’ve made lots of steps forward and missteps as the opposition in parliament. These missteps for me are very important lessons to say; look we must find the right way and move forward. I’m looking at the media as an influencer, an author, and the critic we need to be in shape to discharge our duty without fear or favour,” he said.
He also appealed to journalists to scale up their coverage of parliament’s plenary. He said the government has learnt how and when the media operates and uses the time when cameras are away to carry out fraud on the floor of the House.
“I want to invite you, especially the editors…For the editors, the House begins at 2 pm and ends at 4 pm. I [could] be wrong [but] there is a lot that we miss in the plenary. And when the system wants to carry out some fraud, they target 5 pm onwards when the critical media [has gone] to edit…so many things simply go wrong. Perhaps media houses are stretched, I want to invite you to find a way of balancing the critical presence of the media from 4 pm onwards,” he said.
“I see lots of things take place on the order paper after 5 pm and it is deliberate, the debate is missed, the key junctions are missed, fraud is missed. Of course, we try and struggle to highlight them using the different social media channels but you cannot miss the critical media, you know, shining a torch on somebody spewing lies on the floor of the House. When it comes out through social media, it misses something, you know. Somebody should be seen lying to the world on the floor, the children at home must watch their father lying through his nose. We miss this, some- times. The editors kindly, as we begin a new year look into this,” he added.
fkisakye@observer.ug