President Museveni has said he is impressed that the West Nile has realised that the NRM means good for them.
“The people in West Nile but also in other parts have come to understand NRM better. Initially there was a lot of confusion and scepticism. And people were right because leaders were either uninformed or honest. When NRM came talking, people didn’t initially believe what was said could be done. They thought we were liars. But now they have seen the peace, the developments, the wealth creation, the schools and health centres among others,” Museveni said.
The president was on Friday evening speaking during a radio program at Arua state lodge about his ongoing campaigns in the West Nile sub-region.
He said when his government had just captured power and introduced several programs to various parts of the country, many were sceptical, but said this has changed over time.
Museveni said he was impressed that having seen the promises fulfilled, a number of people from West Nile have started supporting the ruling NRM government.
“When we gave Yumbe a district(in 2000) there were only 100,000 people but now the population is one million. The population has increased because of immunization. The same for Karamoja when I went to campaign for UPM in 1980, it had only 190,000 people but now, they are more than 1.5 million. Because of minimum health, just immunisation population has gone up and life expectancy has also gone up.”
He added, “That’s why in my 30s they were calling me mzee because they thought it was about to die .People(then) would die very early but now, life expectancy has gone to 68 years. Big changes have happened and we are going to change the society completely when we talk of a qualitative leap in the next term.”
Museveni however insisted that wealth creation and free education to Ugandan children will be key in ensuring these targets are reached.
He said every Ugandan must be a wealth creator and all children must be at school.
“There has been a big change(since NRM took power) but we can take a qualitative leap after achieving lower middle income status .We can jump to higher middle income and even first world but you cant modernise if you don’t have education. If children don’t study, how will you modernise.”
“Everybody must be involved in wealth creation either as an owner of worker. Everyone must be involved in commercial activities.”
