Use your vote to ask for services, says Amuriat

Former presidential candidate Patrick Oboi Amuriat has challenged voters to use the power of their vote to demand services and a leadership of accountability.

 “Votes are supposed to be given for a purpose and when that purpose is not satisfied there will be no need to give that vote again. Use it (votes) as a bargaining tool,” Amuriat said on October 14.

Amuriat who is also known as POA and the barefoot president made the remarks at the burial of Joseph Wakabi,71, the father to the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Busoga Region Coordinator, Dr Dominic Joseph Wakabi, in Buyende District.

The deceased died of Pneumonia at Kamuli general Hospital after power went off as he received treatment.

“A great teacher died because electricity went off when he was on oxygen yet we are producing electricity from two dams in Busoga region, that should never have happened if I became president of this country,” he voiced.

 Amuriat challenged the people to rise up and demand ‘‘action against false hopes and perennial pledges that merely excite them into voting and be forgotten till the next election.’’

‘‘When I was an MP for Kumi District, government promised tarmacking Kamuli-Bukungu Road and a Ferry to connect Buyende to Teso and Lango regions which have not been delivered  but keep appearing in national Budgets as unfunded priorities,’’ he said.

On education, POA expressed disappointment over continued school closure due to Covid-19.

“Your children have been at home for two years because the government says they should not be crowded at school yet when you go to Kikubo (Down town Kampala) people are more crowded than here,’’ he said.

In his speech read out by Amuriat, People’s Government President, Kizza Besigye called for a sustained push for regime change.

The late Wakabi was a retired head-teacher and a teachers’ assessor at the time of his death. He is survived by 29 children and 78 grandchildren.