The Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa has paid tribute to former Amuria MP Onapito Ekomoloit, 58 who passed away last Friday.
He echoed this while opening plenary on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.
Ekomoloit died at Kampala Hospital while receiving medical care.
He truly embodied the phrase “jack of all trades,” having served as a journalist with Monitor and Crusader, press secretary to President Yoweri Museveni and chairman of Nile Breweries Limited
“He was a distinguished legislator and leader both in the public and private sector. He is a former Presidential Press Secretary (PPS). You have heard that the President has offered an official burial for him, we shall be waiting for further details and also further details to do with burial arrangements. It is really very sad,” Tayebwa pointed out.
“I request that we stand up and observe a minute of silence in his honor,” he ordered.
Life after politics
Ekomoloit, served as Amuria MP between September 1998 and 2001. He replaced Gen. Jeje Odongo who had relinquished the seat upon being appointed Army commander. Amiable and laid-back, he served as the voice of reason in Uganda’s heated political landscape.
On May 3, this year at a symposium where former MPs under the Parliamentary Alumni of Uganda (PAU) were advocating for pensions, Ekomoloit urged them to consider applying their skills in other areas.
At the time, many of his colleagues who have since fallen on hard times, were advocating to be paid thirty percent of the salary of the sitting MPs (sh3.51million) and medical insurance among others.
However, Ekomoloit persuaded his colleagues to broaden their horizons.
“Prove that there is life after politics. This is actually a curse in Africa. There is a succession of succession planning and retirement in this country. Both within and outside, politics. People cannot leave office…I have been asked a million terms that are you running again. I have a beautiful country home, I said no, there is life after politics,” Ekomoloit advised.
“Those who have read my book; Tears and Trials. I talk about losing the seat, literally crying all day, fleeing the constituency I had lost in the middle of the night. This is traumatic and if you are not careful, you can die and we have lost colleagues. You can go into depression and die,” Ekomoloit disclosed further.
He was backed by Prof. Gerald Karyeija (PhD), attributed former MPs current woes to lack of professional and life skills.
“One of the American Presidents after his tour of duty, he went back and noticed that his chocolate firm was collapsing. Another one could not know how to place a telephone call because he had not done it in a long while. Simple ordinary things, like driving,” Karyeija alluded then.
Adding that studies have shown that a significant number of former lawmakers in Europe are prone to agoraphobia. Simply put, agoraphobia connotes having extreme fear of entering crowded areas.
“There was a Polish President, when he retired, he went to ask for a job as an electrician in a shipyard. But also, we have had John Winters, George Bush who have joined big companies as advisors. For Burundi, constitutionally every former President is now a member of the senate. Somebody was talking about a bicameral parliament but maybe it might be a very bad idea, if that happened,” Karyeija said in May last year.
