It is reported that the NRM honchos this weekend held a Symposium in Canada. This was the second edition of the NRM Canada symposium.
The convenor of the symposium was the 3rd Deputy Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Rukia Nakadama was addressed by the Minister for the Presidency, Milly Babalanda. In her address, the Minister is reported to have urged the attendees to partner with the government of Uganda to steer development. Not a bad message at all.
However, what isn't clear yet is what exactly is the objective of these symposiums being held in foreign capitals. The organizers of the symposium are said to have received $100,000 from the government as a contribution to the organizing of the symposium.
There would be three possible objectives of the symposium. One is to attract investors from Canada to Uganda. Second is to attract the Ugandans in Canada to come back to contribute to the development of their motherland. Third is to act as a conduit in helping take Ugandans seeking green pastures and better opportunities to Canada. All or any of these would be legitimate and applaudable objectives.
If it is indeed the objective of attracting investors from Canada to come and invest in Uganda, that would be a noble campaign for which the organizers and vision bearers need to be commended. However, the difficulty in appreciating this objective of the symposium in Canada kicks in when one comes to consider that almost 95% of the attendees of this year's event were not actually Canadian at all, but instead they were the very Ugandans that had travelled to Canada a few days ago from Kampala. So you may have to wonder where the targeted Canadian investors were!
You also can't fail to wonder what possible benefit was the organizers of the symposium deriving from the NRM Party and Government leaders getting from addressing their beautiful clarion messages to the very people with whom they travelled to Canada on the same flights!
Likewise, if the objective of the symposium was organized in order to enable the government officials to reach out to the Ugandans leaving in Canada with the message of urging them to start considering returning or investing home in Uganda, still the question is where were these targeted Ugandans that live in Canada. The fact of the matter is that Ugandans who live in Canada were not in the audience of the symposium.
While on the other hand if the actual objective of organizing the symposium was to help in creating a conduit for many desperate Ugandans to access Canada, then you have to give it to the organizers.
However, having achieved that objective because many Ugandans were able to get onto the Canadian soil, the real crux now starts on what those Ugandans who went to the symposium with the hidden intention of staying there be able to transform themselves from symposium attendees to legitimate Canadian migrants!
All this is happening on the back drop of very many cautions that have been sounded out by various concerned people recently warning against people being duped into being taken to Canada on false and unrealistic promises. We have our very own, former Kampala Woman Member of Parliament, Hon. Nabillah Sempala who recently made passionate appeals and cautions to Ugandans in her posted self-recorded videos on social media. She narrated how many unsuspecting Ugandans had got themselves trapped on Canadian streets homeless on account of having been taken to Canada without any prior concrete arrangement for accommodation or employment.
It is reported that as a result of many of these Ugandans who go to Canada under such arrangements like conventions, symposiums or conferences finding themselves faced with the difficult situation of not being able to find accommodation nor employment, many of them end up with only one single option of declaring themselves what they are actually not. Many of them opt to declare themselves LGBTQ and they go on to register with the Canadian authorities their claim to have faced persecution and discrimination back home in Uganda. Now, with the enacting of the Anti Homosexual act, things have become even much easier for their claim to be accepted, and rewarded with an asylum offer.
It won't be surprising that the numbers of recorded Ugandan asylum seekers in Canada, US or other European capitals will be soaring. This of course plays in the hands and in the crafty game plan of the West in justifying their condemnation of our stance towards the vice of abnormal sexual orientation and behaviour.
So, it is therefore imperative that those responsible for organizing these events abroad ought to be carefully reviewing the whole sum impact and ramifications of these events to the credibility and sovereignty of the country Uganda.