Let’s embrace national dialogue

The country is looking forward to having the planed national dialogue. The dialogue is being organised by members of Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, The Elders Forum of Uganda, Citizen’s Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda, the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), The National Consultative Forum and the Women’s Situation Room.
The importance of national dialogue is to promote stability and prosperity through harmonisation of national political questions, constitutional questions, coexistence among all faith groups and encourages non-violent resolution of conflicts.

It should be remembered that national dialogue brings all the conversations under one umbrella to avoid ambiguity. The concept of national dialogue is not new in Uganda, starting from 1900, 1928, 1960, UPC and Kabaka Yekka dialogue, Idi Amin’s eight programme, the move to the left dialogue, cultural dialogues and the Common Man’s Charter.
A national dialogue must be based on clear agenda and should guarantee mutual respect for the outcomes of talks. It should have a clear framework and parameters that shape the future of our country to move forward with national consensus on values, diversity, economy, access to land and natural resources, service delivery, political commitment, implementation and constitutionalism.

As a student of political science, basing on the said issues, the basis for discussion is crucial and I urge all the organisations’ representatives to participate in this coming national dialogue for the benefit of all citizens since the people are empowered under our Constitution to sit together and design the destiny of the country. The citizens must be able to evaluate what went wrong in the last 56 years of independence and get a solution among other areas of possible cooperation.
It was reported that President Museveni had during the meeting expressed eagerness to work with other parties under IPOD to stamp out electoral violence, fight corruption and other areas of cooperation.

The IPOD summit slated for today, comes only a week to the launch of the national dialogue process that has now been set for December 18, according to the organisers.
My question to the national dialogue organisers is “where are the young people?’’ I think the participation of the youth representatives could be of great significance to the country.
Obed Twijukye,
[email protected].