President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has revealed that he will be meeting all cultural leaders in Uganda in September this year.
The President said the meeting will focus on sharing the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government’s vision with the cultural leaders.
“We have been active from the 1960s. We started as a student movement, then we became a fighting force because of our internal politics here. We later became a political movement but we have got very strong views which we would like to share with the traditional people so that we don’t clash. Because for us, we are very firm. We cannot change,” he said.
President Museveni made the remarks on Monday while meeting a group of cultural leaders from Africa led by the Umukuka III of the Bamasaba Cultural Institution, Jude Mike Mudoma, at State House, Entebbe.
During the meeting, the President implored the cultural leaders to sensitise their people to create wealth and uplift their livelihoods. He said as Government, they have always advocated prosperity among Ugandans. “Our starting point is a question.
Do you want prosperity in Africa or not? If you say you do, then the question is how will it be achieved? Can it be achieved by begging Europeans? If begging was the solution, Africa by now would be rich because they have been begging for the last 70 years almost. Begging has not worked, that is why you see crises everywhere in Africa, which means that the issue of prosperity is yet to be addressed,” he said, according to a release from the Presidential Press Unit.
“Our view is that prosperity will come from each adult person producing a good or participating in producing a good or a service and selling it sustainably and getting money; that money will help me get rich and solve my problems.” President Museveni further explained that prosperity will come from wealth creation; that is why the Government sends money (Parish Development Model) to villages to create wealth for every homestead.
“If you say that is the way to get prosperity, then the next question is who will buy what you produce? Our analysis, like me I’m from a tribe that keeps cows. “From the cows, I get milk and beef and I sell them. When I sell them, I get money which I use to build a better house and solve my problems. We also produce bananas in my tribe. But the problem I have is that people in my tribe don’t buy from me because they produce the same products like me,” he noted.
“The ones who buy bananas and my milk and beef are the other tribes in Uganda because they are the ones who don’t have what we have.
They also have something that we don’t have.
“You find that Uganda is the one which helps my tribe to be prosperous because they buy what my tribe don’t buy. That is why we tell our people that the tribe is important but love Uganda —patriotism. Why? Because you need it for your prosperity.” The President added that when people produce more, they will realise that the local market is not enough, thus the need for the African market.
“That is why we tell our people that we also need Africa to get a market for our surplus goods. That is why our principle number two is pan-Africanism,” he asserted.
“Socio-economic transformation is also crucial. Our people must change. They must become modern. They can’t continue being where they were before.” The President also cautioned the leaders against bad politics of dividing people based on tribes, saying it hinders development.
