Nabilla Naggayi Sempala's election challenged

Kampala registered voter Alex Oryang Odonga has petitioned the Constitutional Court challenging the validity of the re-election of Nabillah Naggayi Sempala as the Kampala district woman representative.

Odonga contends that since 2005 Kampala stopped being a district after the 9th Parliament amended the 1995 Constitution and created Kampala as the capital city of Uganda.

The amendment stopped Kampala from being a district that required a woman representative any longer.

Odonga, who petitioned through Bwango Araali & Company Advocates, has also filed an application in which he seeks for an injunction stopping the Independent Electoral Commission from gazetting Nabillah Naggayi Sempala as the validly elected woman MP representing Kampala Capital City.

The petitioner contends that the Constitution of Uganda provides that there shall be one woman representative for every district in Parliament. But, the Constitution does not provide for representation in Parliament by a woman representative for a city or cities in Uganda.

However, Odonga asserted, the EC issued an election roadmap for the 2016 general elections, which calendar included the elction of a woman representative for Kampala City on February 18, 2016 and the returning officer of Kampala on February 19 declared Nabillah Naggayi Sempala as winner of the Parliamentary elections for Kampala City woman MP, which contravened the Constitution.

Odonga seeks for a declaration that section 8(1) of the Parliamentary Elections Act 2005 under which Nabillah Naggayi Sempala was elected is inconsistent with and in contravention of Articles 2 (1) and 61 (1) (b) of the Constitution of Uganda.

He also asks court to declare that the election of Naggayi Sempala was unconstitutional and should be annulled. He also seeks an order prohibiting the EC from conducting elections for a woman representative for Kampala or any other city that might be created under the Parliamentary Elections Act 2005 in the absence of a legal provision for such elections in the Constitution of Uganda.