Leadership in Africa is like war - Museveni

Koboko- President Museveni, one of Africa’s longest serving statesmen, has said leadership in Africa is a struggle like war.
He was responding to the current political situation in the country where Opposition parties have intensified their struggle to remove him from power in 2021.

“Those people who talk about term limits and that a 75-year-old cannot lead a country is a lie. Those are just stupid ideas. The Banyankore have a proverb that when you have food, you sound a small drum, but if you sound alarm for war, you make it big so that more people can come and join. So, people think leadership in Africa is like food. I have seen that leadership in Africa is like a struggle, it is like war,” he said at the weekend.

He was speaking at St Charles Lwanga playground in Koboko Municipality during the launch of the National Optic Fibre Backbone/E-Governance Infrastructure for West Nile region.

Parliament in 2017 amended the Constitution to remove the upper presidential age cap, of 75 years, rendering the 74-year-old eligible to run for re-election in 2021 if interested.

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Central Executive Committee members, as well as NRM Caucus, have endorsed a resolution to front Mr Museveni as the ruling party’s sole candidate for the 2021 general elections.

At the Saturday function, district chairpersons in West Nile Sub-region read a joint memorandum in which they endorsed the resolution to ring-fence the NRM presidential flag bearer slot for the incumbent.

Alluding to the 2011 revolutions, baptised as Arab Spring, which swept away long-serving leaders, Mr Museveni said revolutionaries in Tunisia lacked proper leadership.

Mr Sam Nyakua, the Arua District chairperson, who read the memorandum on behalf of his colleagues, attributed their support to NRM government’s upgrade of Karuma-Pakwach-Nebbi-Arua road to bitumen, restoring peace and working on fixing the electricity problem.
Ms Evelyn Anite, the Minister of State for Investment and Privatisation and host MP, told the President that the people of Koboko support him because he returned them from exile in the neighbouring DR Congo and present-day South Sudan.

She also said residents appreciate that Uganda is peaceful yet the two countries, which hosted Ugandans as refugees, are now scarred by insecurity.

Up to 500,000 people from West Nile were in DR Congo and the then Sudan by the time President Museveni captured power in 1986, and his government organised for their return.

A source on the organising committee said the multitudes at the function were transported from all the nine West Nile districts.

Internet boost
In the past 10 years, few people in West Nile accessed Internet due to inhibitive costs. Internet cafes then charged as high as Shs150 per minute of connectivity. The commissioning of the $15.8m Internet project funded by the World Bank was billed as a magic bullet to Internet access, enabling students to cheaply access learning materials.

Mr James Saaka, the executive director of National Information Technology Authority Uganda, said they have connected more than 500 government offices since 2013. The newly-launched phase of the project will also benefit Moroto and Kasese districts.

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