President Museveni has again reminded his critics that he is not in government to get riches or earn a living out of it but rather to serve his people.
“I am a humble man and I don’t want to quarrel with people but am not happy with people who want to provoke me to say bad things. I don’t need to be in government for a living because I am quite a rich man,” Museveni said on Thursday as he addressed NRM youth leaders from the districts of Ntoroko and Bundibugyo as he finalized his scientific campaigns in the region.
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The NRM presidential candidate told the youth leaders that even when he started fighting Amin in 1971; he was a rich man, having left a government job to go to the bush.
He however insisted that service to his people is what drives him to lead the country.
“My actual motivation for being in politics is security of Ugandans. I didn’t like the Kings African Rifles which was the army of the colonialists and the way they were beating people. That’s why I want to build an army of our own people that doesn’t beat them. That’s why our army is in Somalia, a Muslim country and is loved yet the Americans spent a few years there,” he noted.
The President told the group that having been born in Ntungamo, at a tender age he realized the locals had a lot of resources but were wallowing in poverty and he embarked on a mission to have the status quo changed.
He noted that before he went to the bush to fight Amin’s government in 1971, he had started on a journey to mobilise locals, starting with his family to engage in commercial farming, adding that he was partially successful.
“The four-acre model is my medicine from 1966. After analysis, I realized people need to know how to work for both their stomachs and pockets. I am not talking about ranching, growing sugarcanes, or cotton because this needs to be done by big people. I am focusing on small people who are not rich. That’s way I sometimes get annoyed with leaders who don’t put into practice what I tell them,” he said.
To become great leaders
Museveni, who was speaking a mixture of Rutooro and English languages told the NRM youth leaders that they can only be great if they carry out a diagnosis of the problems of the people they lead.
“The politics should start with social-economic transformation. The problem is that many people come into politics to be voted for and not work for their people, My involvement in politics was because of the social transformation of my people. Don’t come into politics for money but rather God will reward you if do good,”Museveni said.
“You must be change agents and my job is not to carry you but rather show you the way.”
