You can only be change agents if you are clear-headed- Museveni tells youths

President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the NRM presidential candidate has urged youths to always be clear-headed if they are to be change agents in Uganda.

Speaking to youths from Greater Mbarara at the Mbarara district headquarters as he began his scientific campaigns in Ankole sub-region on Monday, Museveni said many youths are wasted adding that these can’t be leaders.

“You must know what the NRM ideology says. The ideology is integrated that one thing leads to the other. You must know that the NRM ideology differs from others. As young leaders, you must know the thinking that will help you manage society,”Museveni said.

“The first thing is ideology which is the diagnosis of the sickness or problems of society and their prescription.”

The NRM presidential candidate told youths that by understanding the ruling party’s ideology, they cannot be clear-headed as required of them.

Citing an example of himself, Museveni told youths that they can never be change agents if they don’t clearly understand society’s problems and how to solve them.

“I was the first educated person in my Basita clan. I was just 14 years old when I went to Mbarara stock farm and saw how government was doing agriculture in a modern and different way. When I went back home in Ntungamo, I told my father we needed to do things differently. When I finished A-level, I got time to deal with villages since this time I had read through school of how people changed society,”Museveni.

The President who chose to use both English and the local Runyankole languages always peppered his speech with adages and saying in the local language, as well as words from the local language that youths didn’t understand and it took time for him to explain to them what he meant.

Wealth creation gospel

The NRM presidential candidate told the youth leaders that it does not need them to be rich to change their societies but noted that they can start right from their families and the other members of society would follow suit.

“This is the challenge I want to put to you. You need to help your families to use the assets they have to generate incomes equal to or greater to their expenditures and this way they will get out of poverty,” he said.

Museveni said the problem of  most Ugandans is not poverty but rather having no money because they have property which can be turned into money but a few know how to do it.

“I would like you to do a four-acre model because small scale agriculture is the way to go for people with small pieces of land. Use one acre for growing fruits, the other for coffee and then the remaining two for food for the family and pasture for the animals. You can as well rear chicken, pigs or do fish faring for those with swamps,” he said.

Museveni said, this way, youths can be change agents in their own societies by helping families not only create wealth but also jobs other than waiting for government intervention.

He however noted that for those whose families don’t have land, they can benefit from the youth livelihood program and Emyooga presidential initiative on job and wealth creation.

“For example in the past four years, 18000 youths from Ankole have benefitted from the youth livelihood program but Ankole has over 3 million youths.  That’s why we more money to capture more numbers and this can be done when your MPs support my ideas of increasing the budgets for these programs,” Museveni said.