Scientific campaigns helping me move away from sloganeering, says Museveni

President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the NRM presidential candidate, has said the scientific campaigns are helping him discuss in detail, Uganda’s problems with the party leaders but also get the prescriptions for the same.

“This campaign is good in a way and better than other campaigns we did. This is because with other campaigns it was about mobilization where you excite people to follow something. I like this because it is educational. I get a chance to spend some hours with leaders from the various zones and discuss in detail the diagnosis of problems and prescription,” Museveni told Bukedi sub-region NRM leaders from the districts of Tororo, Butaleja and Budaka districts on Saturday afternoon.

The President said, unlike the previous campaigns where he would address rallies to shout slogans, the scientific campaigns brought about by the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic have been of advantage to him because after meeting the NRM leaders, they relay the message to the population about the achievements for the ruling party, more so the problems and solutions.

“These campaigns are better than the previous ones of sloganeering and dancing because we get time to discuss in depth the medicine.”

Achievements

The President told the NRM leaders to preach the story of transformation through which the ruling party has led the country.

“The problems affecting the country are what the NRM studied and we found that the biggest mistake had been sectarianism. In the past, leaders put emphasis on gender, tribe and religion but this was a failure by leaders to define what the problems were. If you divide people, how will you win elections? First of all you are misdefining the problem but secondly making it impossible to govern the country,” he said.

According to President Museveni, whereas he together with his colleagues tried to correct some of the previous leaders like Obote of the mistake they were doing, they disregarded the advice.

“We realised these people were misleading us yet society has common needs and for us we decided to emphasize people's problems rather than sectarianism. We would go to Uganda Club where they (Obote) were drinking from and they thought we were joking. They were telling us sectarianism was natural and politics meant you had to manipulate people. For us we were not jokers but committed and that is what happened when we came to fighting.”

Museveni noted that after capturing power, the NRM ensured they preach the gospel of unity to the people and that it was widely accepted by Ugandans.

He explained that because of unity, a strong army has been formed by not emphasizing religion or tribe in recruitments, a factor he noted has contributed to peace and development of the country.

The President however noted that the remaining problem is subsistence production where a large percentage of the population works for their stomachs only.

He urged the leaders to encourage people to work for both their stomachs and the pockets.

“Once we do that, we shall have rich foreigners running factories but also our own money doing agriculture, small factories, services and youths through ICT. We can be able to transform the country,” he said.