The failure by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Gen. Kale Kayihura to respond in person to the summons by the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Internal Affairs has left the committee divided with members throwing insults at each other.
The police boss was expected to appear before the committee to which he declined with reasons that he had an urgent meeting in Kenya.
This angered most of the members who saw it as disrespect by the IGP to the entire institution of Parliament.
Some of the committee members most of whom were opposition members stormed out of a committee meeting accusing the Chairperson and Mityana District Woman MP, Judith Nabakooba of double standards, being a former member of the police force.
“To reach here and the IGP fails to turn up would be to confirm that Parliament is being undermined and the Chairperson is being used by Police where she came from to really do work for Kayihura and he is escaping,” noted Hon. Muwanga Kivumbi who spoke on behalf of the other aggrieved members after storming out of the committee meeting on Thursday.
Hon Judith Nabakooba carried on with the commitee meeting in the absence of the IGP
Muwanga said that for the last 3 to 4months, the Force Kayihura has been commanding is in bad light for abusing the rights of the people and working without regard to the law of the land.
“Kayihura should personally come to Parliament and clean his image; actually if he had come, we were going to demand for his resignation, I wanted to put it up to him that irrespective of what has happened, let him tender in a resignation,”
Muwanga noted that Kayihura’s wrongdoing spinning out of control, now that he was using Members of Parliament as his shield.
“If he starts undermining Parliament by using members of Parliament in this fashion and in this way, then at this time then we cannot proceed with him as the IGP.”
“He can’t escape, he is trying to dodge court; you are aware that his lawyers said he hasn’t received any summons yet; you can’t dodge court and then you want to dodge Parliament.”
“Kayihura must understand that whether Nabakooba or not, he will not hide; Nabakooba will not be used to give cover to the IGP as a Chairperson of Defense and Internal Affairs Committee.”
Nabakooba however dismissed these accusations as baseless, saying that she was only doing her work, by deciding to carry on with the committee session in the absence of the IGP.
“I am not the first person to head a committee; it’s not a new thing and as a Chairperson of this committee , I have to perform to the best of my expectations because the public out there is looking up to me especially the people of Mityana district,’ Nabakooba said.
“Of course being a first meeting, we were expecting him to be around but since he had a genuine reason, that he was traveling on other duties, then the deputy had to come. He came with the minister who is their political head and we couldn’t keep on postponing the meeting.”