Speaker Among unlikely to make Rome for papal rosary
Speaker Among unlikely to make Rome for papal rosary
Ms Anita Among has had audience with Pope Francis in each of the past two months of August
NATIONAL | The options are very, very limited even as the Director Public Affairs and Communication at Parliament, Mr Chris Obore is surefooted that the Speaker can make it to the Vatican City on August 24.
Ms Anita Among was granted a private audience by Pope Francis in early March but the meeting scheduled for the morning of Saturday August 24, is looking uncertain UK and US sanctions could leave her life landlocked in the landlocked Republic of Uganda.
Pope Francis has granted audience to Ms Among every August of the last two years and this would be a third meeting at the Vatican City between the two.
Mr Obore told Nile Post that the Pope “discriminates none and sanctions none because he spreads the love of God not hatred, bitterness and anger but bringing all before God’s presence”.
However, with Germany and the EU by extension, reportedly editing their sanctions against Uganda’s third most powerful person, it looks like Archbishop Luigi Bianco, the apostolic nuncio to Uganda and titular Archbishop of Falerone, might need to pull off the impossible for the meeting to happen.
The Office of the Apostolic Nunciature could not respond to our queries as repeated calls to Archbishop Bianco went unanswered.
The Speaker can take a direct flight to the Holy See but even if business-oriented airlines like Ethiopian Airlines that would only happen if the Ugandan government let her past the departure lounge in Entebbe Airport.
Foreign Affairs ministry permanent secretary Vincent Bagiire could not respond to our inquiries on whether the government would allow the Speaker travel into a potential humiliation should any of the US and UK allies raise the red flag in her face.
The UK sanction Speaker Among on April 30 and on Thursday, the US government followed suit with a designation that even affects her husband Moses Magogo.
The Speaker sought the papal audience long before revelations surfaced that she was superintending over and facilitating gross corruption inside Parliament.
But before the social media exposes, the Karamoja relief items scandal in which Ms Among was forced to return 500 pieces of iron sheets had already left her in need of spiritual solace.
Ambasssador Stephen Mubiru, the head of Ugandan mission in Berlin, Germany, last week asked the Clerk to Parliament to furnish his office with the address in Rome where the Speaker will be residing before July 24.
The Speaker would travel with three accompanying delegation to the Papal Audience.
“As per Vatican Protocol, the Speaker will be received by His Eminence Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State to His Holiness immediately after the Papal audience,” Amb Mubiru said.
