On Saturday, President Yoweri Museveni visited the Kibuye and Katwe settlements in Ugandan capital Kampala to meet with ghetto youth and commission the ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM) youth camp office.
The president also launched a savings and loan initiative for the youths living in the two slums.
“The office will be a registration point for SACCOs and will make it easy for us to support the youth in their different productive groups,” Mr Museveni said.
During his interaction with youth in Katwe, Mr Museveni said he met the “trailblazing Moses Kayira, who has assembled two cars: Uganda 1 and Uganda 2.”
“The government is going to support the likes of Kayira in promoting further innovations and many other novel ideas geared towards exploiting their abilities for national development. If they can do so much single-handedly, then government support will stretch their ability to deliver on innovations the world is yet to see,” Mr Museveni added.
During his visit, the president reportedly appointed local artiste Catherine Kusasira as his advisor on Kampala Affairs, and singer Mark Bugembe popularly known as Butcherman as his presidential envoy on Ghetto Affairs.
But opposition politician Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, has dismissed the president’s visit saying he was now appealing for support after impoverishing the ghetto, describing the Mr Museveni as “scared and desperate.”
“For 34 years, this man impoverished, marginalised and ignored the ghetto people. He evicted them from their land. He didn’t care about their health, their education or their lives. He over taxed them, tortured them and killed so many of them. He thought the ghetto didn’t matter,” Mr Kyagulanyi said on Sunday.
“After so many years, and tired of indignity, the ghetto people rose up to speak for themselves. Led by the Ghetto President, they made it clear that enough was enough. The ghetto went to Parliament and embarked on the process of taking over the nation’s leadership and changing the country forever,” Mr Kyagulanyi added in the statement he posted on his social media platforms.
The pop musician-turned-politician is the self-declared ‘ghetto president’ who has declared his interest to challenge the veteran leader in the 2021 elections.
“He (Museveni) first dismissed us. But we persisted. He threatened us. We stood firm. He bribed some ghetto people but the ghetto youth stayed on course. They asked me to continue shaking the tree, because that is the only time they saw government coming to them. Having failed in all his schemes; very scared and desperate, President Museveni now returns as ‘Man of Ghetto.’ The sheer lack of shame! I can assure him that the authentic ghetto people will not permit him to mock them,” he said.
Credit: Source link