Anita Among – The Enigma of a woman
During the Military rule of President Idi Amin, a light was ignited in the county of Bukedea on 23 November 1973 formerly part of Kumi District. This was kept in a lantern and fanned through Pallisa Girls Primary School, Mbale High School (UCE), and finally Masaka A-Level Academy for UACE giving her a glimpse of what the world help beyond the boundary of Bukedea District.
She joined Centenary Bank around 1998, where her ambition went unnoticed as she rose through the ranks to become a Branch Manager by the time of her resignation to take another career path in 2006. During this time, she pursued BBA at Makerere University graduating in 2005.
She made a bold career shift, resigning to pursue further studies enrolling for an MBA at the same university that she completed it in 2008.Her entry into politics began in 2007 when she contested for the Bukedea Woman MP seat under the opposition FDC party but lost to NRM’s Rose Akol. Undeterred, she ran again in 2011 but was defeated once more. During this period, she served as a lecturer in accounting at MUBS and KIU – where she was pursing her Law degree
In 2016, after being denied the FDC party ticket, she ran as an independent candidate and won the Bukedea Woman MP seat—fulfilling a long-held aspiration to lead her district. She didn’t study from Gayaza High School, but one thing was for certain she understood their motto NEVER GIVE UP and decided from a tender age that giving up was not an option in her life.
Regardless of how circumstance where she kept putting in the work from her early career at Centenary Bank to branch manager as she levelled at her cost financially up by adding a BBA and MBA degree to pivot her in her accountancy path – ambitious is what the dictionary would call it.
Understand what your made for and work towards it daily.Life will sometime throw punches at you! It will convince you that all is said and done. It will bring you to the point where the easiest option is throwing in the towel. It won’t care whether it’s your life’s task. Amidst all this the million-dollar question is how will you deal with it? Shall you take the path of less resistance – pleasure or like they that entered the annals of history take the path rarely desired – Pain.
The repeated electoral defeats in 2007 and 2011 did not deter her but rather seemed to reinforce her resolve to dare to believe again that one day she would achieve her life’s task of leading her people and that came to pass after being denied a party ticket and defying an institutional setback. It’s in those rainy days that you learn how to handle rejection, how to deal with failure organically for I know folks my age (thanks to the fast passed IG and Tik Tok 10 second reel) can’t handle the shame, remorse of prolonged repeated failures. The understanding that pain will only exist and take hold of you as long as you give it attention.
On entry into parliament, she reconciled with her mother party – FDC that nominated her to serve as Vice Chairperson of COSASE, the parliamentary committee responsible for scrutinizing public accounts.Eventually her political alignment began to shift when she hosted President Museveni in district during the controversial “Togikwatako” period. This act strained her relationship with FDC, which moved to replace her on COSASE with Moses Kasibante. Among defended her position, citing her status as an independent and the parliamentary rules that entitled her to a 2.5-year tenure, of which she had only served one year. Her fallout with FDC was widely attributed to the party’s earlier refusal to endorse her in 2016.
In 2020, she formally joined the ruling NRM party and won the party primaries. She was unanimously re-elected unopposed as Bukedea Woman MP after the Electoral Commission disqualified six contenders due to nomination discrepancies.Through NRM, she was endorsed for the position of Deputy Speaker of Uganda’s 11th Parliament, which she won. In March 2022, following the death of Jacob Oulanyah, she was elected Speaker of Parliament—becoming the second woman in Uganda’s history to hold the Deputy Speaker position, after Rebecca Kadaga.
In 2023, she drew international attention by urging Parliament to support a bill criminalizing self-identification as LGBT, proposing penalties of up to ten years in prison.Throughout her tenure, Among has actively mobilized support recruiting close to 10 politicians from the opposition into the ruling party in 5 years besides rallying support for the President across the country, a move that elevated her visibility and positioned her to contest for the internal NRM NEC role of 2nd Vice President (Female) a position she won.
Her ability to build transgenerational relationships in age, career and gender that her different career paths played a huge role in can’t go unnoticed. I usually laugh when peers in an office have a sour relationship because of a small promotion! It’s the blinkered sight, to ignore the fact that these will be the next movers and shakers of systems when the superiors your bad mouthing them to are long gone
