Uganda politician who pushed Anti-Homosexuality Act loses X account
Among used X to promote anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in Uganda
The former speaker of the Uganda parliament and one of the most vocal promoters of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) 2023, Anita Among has lost her remaining public platform on X, formerly Twitter, which she had previously used to spread anti-LGBTQ rights rhetoric.
According to multiple sources, Among’s X account @AnitahAmong was taken over by Global Africa Brief and rebranded as @GlobalAfricaHQ, a media platform linked to a U.S.-based Ugandan journalist Remmy Bahati.
In early October, Among’s verified X account which had about 614,000 followers had a sudden change of handles prompting an ongoing debate on whether it was a negotiated or an involuntary takeover.
A new X account has since appeared with the handle @AnitaAmong, but it has only around 50 followers at time of publication.
Godwin Toko, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist is one of the Ugandans who noticed the change in its infancy on October 11.
“Former Speaker of @Parliament_Ug and Bukedea Woman MP Annet Anita Among’s last major means of direct communication with the world, her Twitter handle, is gone. The account was not deleted, but has changed to @GlobalAfricaHQ. However, all her previous tweets have been deleted,” Toko revealed.
According to The Independent, technical checks show the numerical X user ID remains the same as the one previously used by Anita Among and the account retains the 614,000 followers. All of Among’s content (posts, parliamentary updates, and personal statements) have vanished, leaving the embattled law maker with no known public platform.
After losing her biggest platform, the position of speaker of parliament which she largely used to dehumanize and criminalize the SOGIE community and political opponents, Among seems to have softened her rhetoric.
She mostly posted personal statements on X, sharing her thoughts on her removal from the office of speaker and corruption charges against her. When she was still speaker, homophobic posts popped up on her X account on a regular basis, but she hadn’t since her removal.
Both Among and Bahati’s continued silence on this development has paved way for a wave of all kinds of speculations including claims that one of her staff who was tasked with running the platform might have handed the account to Global Africa Brief without her knowledge or consent.
A Uganda-based journalist who requested to remain anonymous told Erasing 76 Crimes that he will not be surprised if Among blames it on homosexuals.
“Among has a long history of blaming every failure on her side on homosexuals who are supposedly fighting her for championing the enactment of the harsh Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023. Don’t be surprised when she returns to that tired script,” he said.
According to the journalist, the knockout blow against her came from her own masters.
“She became obsessed with AHA to the extent that everything else including important issues of the constituency and national interest mattered less to her. Her adversaries capitalized on this recklessness to corner her. When the sanctions and corruption charges were at the peak, she had no stamina left to fight back and no powerful allies to save her,” he says.
Some circles are therefore claiming that after realizing that she is no longer in the good books of the regime whose powers she greatly helped to consolidate, Among who is arguably the most unpopular politician in Uganda now, seems to be excusing herself from public life.
Some speculate that she might actually have okayed the takeover to save herself from hostile comments that always engulfed her posts on X.
Among remains the woman MP for the Bukedea District in parliament.
