Census results show NRM was all along right - Museveni

President Museveni has said the results of the 2024 national population census carried out by UBOS have vindicated NRM’s ideology on the development of the country.

Speaking following the release of the  preliminary results at Kampala Serena Hotel on Thursday, Museveni said when the NRM had just come to power, there were efforts by the west to introduce a number of ideas including birth control methods that he said he dismissed.

“We had problems with some groups which wanted to castrate people that they are containing population . We told them, the problem was medical and social economic,” Museveni said.

“The NRM told you that deal with the social economic base of society and the rest will come up more easily and it is how we introduced universal immunization so that children don’t die, maternal mortality has come down, life expectancy has gone up.”

The president joked that at the age of 26 as he mobilized colleagues to go the bush to fight, he was being referred to as mzee since he looked old.

“The people I was recruiting looked at me as being very old.  This has now changed. When we started, the life expectancy was 43 years which meant we needed to produce more people. If people die early, you need more but now life expectancy has gone to 63 and people are joining the money economy, they are not giving birth to many children.”

“When the eating was rural, it depended on more hands(children) to grow the food. It meant the more children one had, the more food they grew. This has changed. Now the food you eat you don’t grow but  need money to buy it. Now the idea of too many mouths to feed is no longer attractive.”

According to the president, since life has improved, Ugandans no longer want to give birth to many children since this means they will have to dip into their pockets to feed them, noting that this was the original idea that the NRM suggested to the West as they wanted to introduce birth control methods.

Museveni explained this is a natural way to control the birth rate of the country , other than other methods.

He added that improving medical system and introduction of universal education have also proved a point in improving the status of the population.

“This census is going to prove many things. It proves what we have been telling you is correct.”