President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has received a special message from his counterpart from Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh.
The message was delivered by the Special Envoy of the President of the Republic of Djibouti, who is also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mahamoud Ali Youssouf at the State House, Entebbe.
In the message, President Museveni was appreciated for championing peace, security and development of infrastructure as well as advocating for the prosperity of the people in the region.
“Uganda has been very successful in the region; in infrastructure development such as electricity and roads. Your ideas have transformed the economy and the people,” Youssouf said.
President Museveni who warmly welcomed Youssouf to Uganda, shared his perspective, noting that the most important element is the vision of how to create prosperity.
“In the last 60 years, our movement, which started as a student movement, has been explaining to our people that prosperity comes from providing goods and services. If I produce goods and services I sell and get money and if it is done several times, I will become prosperous. That is what shaped our thinking,” Museveni informed the Special Envoy.
He added that Uganda experienced the dark era where sectarianism was promoted but the student movement opposed that wrong ideology by strongly advocating for the interest of the people.
He pointed out that this gave birth to the core principles of patriotism, Pan-Africanism, socio-economic transformation and democracy.
President Museveni, however, observed that the current crisis in most of the African countries is partly because of a bad ideology based on the politics of identity.
“If an idea is not right it will lead to disaster,” he noted.
The Special Envoy was accompanied by Abdi Mahamoud Eybe, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Djibouti to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union (AU) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).