Ugandans must reject those acting outside Constitution, says Museveni Part VI of these series is a speech that the then President-elect Museveni delivered on May 12, 1996 during the swearing-in ceremony after Uganda’s first presidential elections since 1980. Museveni, who had by then been in power for 10 years since the 1986 military coup, outlined his vision for Uganda in his first elective term of office. Fellow Ugandans, I congratulate you all on the successful execution of the first Presidential Election in the history of our country. I thank all those who voted for me and wish to reassure all Ugandans, supporters and non-supporters alike, that I will serve you all, without discrimination, to the best of my ability. I salute Stephen Akabway, chairman of the Interim Electoral Commission, and his team for a job well done. I extend the same salutations to all our friends who helped finance the electoral exercise and wish to assure them of my firm resolve to wean our nascent democratic institutions to maturity. On a similar occasion on 29th January, 1986, I promised to deliver a fundamental change on behalf of the National Resistance Movement, after many years of tyranny and chaos in our country. Today, I stand before you to report that we have largely delivered the change promised. What we need now and what you have granted us through your votes is to consolidate the achievements made during the last ten years, to consolidate our institutions so that they can become permanent and unshakeable. To me, this is what the overwhelming mandate you have given me means. With regard to the democratisation process which we embarked upon while we were still fighting the tyranny in the bush by establishing resistance committees, this election is the defining moment in that process. We have come a long way to this moment, through elections by electoral colleges, through a successful one-man-one-vote Constituent Assembly election in March 1994, through the whole exercise of constitution-making by the people of Uganda, culminating in the election of the president under that Constitution. In all the mature democracies of the world today, democratisation is an on-going process and not an event. Democratic institutions have developed within the soils of the successful democracies over a long period of time and have never been overnight implants from elsewhere. I, therefore, call upon all people of goodwill to give Ugandans the opportunity and the time to develop democratic institutions that suit their political and Socio-Economic condition, institutions that can ensure security, peace and prosperity and deliver good governance. To destroy is easy; to build is difficult. In 1986, we took over a failed state in all respects; to-day Uganda is a buoyant state with one of the fastest growth rates on the continent. Most Ugandans agree with the rest of the world that our country has had a phenomenal recovery in the last ten years. Our mission in the next five years will be to launch Uganda on a steady course of development. We have the will and the vision to make Uganda a modern nation in all respects but we need all the support you, the people of Uganda, can give us to translate our vision into reality. I have said on many occasions that peace and security are the Sine Qua Non of development. We cannot deliver development before peace. Fortunately, most Ugandans recognise the need for peace and security and that is why Uganda has been able to move at a fast pace of growth these past ten years. Unfortunately, there are a few people in our country who have sought to thrive on the chaos they generate and are insensitive to the suffering of the people in the places which they operate. The National Resistance Movement government has done what we could to bring all the groups opposed to us within the fold and we have been largely successful in our reconciliation efforts. That is why most of the country is at peace today. The misfortune that Uganda must learn to live with is that we share one of our borders with a country where fundamentalists are keen to expand their sphere of influence, south of their border. The insecurity that grips parts of the truth must, therefore, be seen in a wider contest. Uganda is at the frontier of fundamentalism and some of our people who do not see the larger picture have become easy prey to fundamentalists who are now inadvertently assisting them in their endeavours to expand the theatre of fundamentalism. We are determined to resist this incursion. I, therefore, appeal to the patriotism of Ugandans engaged in the fostering of the fundamentalist enterprise to reconsider their position. We cannot have meaningful development if what we build today is destroyed tomorrow. No one will invest where the tomorrow is uncertain. Our country is so generously endowed that if each one of us settled down to do a day’s work, our achievements would shock the world in a few years’ time. Let all of us, therefore, be part of the movement for modernisation in which no part of Uganda gets left behind by other parts of the country. The choice not to be left behind is ours to take and I believe that given the right leadership all around we can all move together towards the creation of a modern, prosperous nation. In my Election Manifesto, I stated the purpose of my candidacy; I outlined the tasks ahead. The next five years will be years of consolidation and movement. We cannot rest on the laurels of success recorded in the last ten years and stay there. I definitely would not have sought this term from the electorate if I was satisfied with the achievements we have recorded, impressive as they certainly are. I am not in the habit of promising what I cannot deliver and whatever modest promises I have made in my Election Manifesto, I intend to deliver. I, therefore, ask for your co-operation and your patience. Ours is a well thought out and empirically worked out programme and I sincerely believe we can achieve our objectives. Let, therefore, each one of us do their bit towards our common end. We have laid the foundations of constitutionalism on which we can build a strong democratic superstructure. Let all Ugandans have faith in the Constitutional road to our political development. Constitutions are dynamic and grow. There are provisions for that in our new Constitution. What Ugandans should never countenance from now on is to act outside the Constitution. The people of Uganda who worked so hard to make our new constitution will not allow it and it is good for our country. Let Ugandans resolve never to have pigeonhole constitutions again. Let us all resolve to move one path of constitutionalism. I have just sworn to uphold the Constitution and I will defend it with all the means at my disposal. Our policy of economic liberalisation has delivered and shall maintain it. Government will continue to withdraw from business and I hope that by the end of my term, the private sector will be the dominant sector in the economy. I hope that by the end of my term, there will be a significant number of indigenous Ugandan stakeholders on which the future stability of our country will be built. We have sometimes been unjustly accused, even by some people who should know better, of having brought poverty to this country. Poverty was here before we took over. May be due to the ever present worry of the preservation of life and limb, not much was said about it. With the peace and security that the National Resistance Movement government ushered, people began to lightly talk about their economic condition. Although a lot of achievements have been made in the economic sphere such as the attainment of macro-economic stability upon which the economy really depends, the building of the divested infrastructure and so on; we have not yet conquered poverty in the average household and this is one of the major tasks ahead of us. We shall do what we can to show the people the opportunities available to improve their household incomes. I spent several months recently going around the country on my Anti-Poverty crusade. All opinion leaders must be involved in the conquest of poverty. Apart from continuing with infrastructural development and other support services, the Entandikwa Credit Scheme will be strengthened and diversified. The Entandikwa Credit Scheme has so far embraced the rural and urban poor. There is another category that needs start-up funds — the university graduates and graduates from other tertiary institutions. The public sector is shrinking and the formal sectors will not expand at the same rate at which we are training this high level man power. These young people must, therefore, be assisted to create their own jobs and in the process to create jobs for others. We should look at them as the future entrepreneurial class. They need tools to harness their skills. We shall assist them to realise their dreams. All we ask them to do is to dream; to have a clear vision of what they want to do and what they want to be. Affirmative action cannot be permanent. We have used it to sensitise women and other hitherto disadvantaged groups to the need to struggle for equal consideration. Women and other groups have responded very well to the challenge of equality. This struggle is just beginning and it is up to them to take advantage of the opportunities available and, most important, to overcome the feeling that they are somehow unequal. Our new Constitution guarantees equality for all and, although there is some catching up still to be done, the most important thing is to take up the challenge of equality in the knowledge that affirmative action is only a means to an end. Although Uganda as we know it today is a colonial creation, the people, the Ugandans, were already here and the evolution of states was in various stages of advancement. Uganda was not a Tabula Rasa; our forbearers had already shaped it. We have a past beyond the colonial one. It is that past that shapes our present and our future. We must take it in stride. We took it in stride when we restored traditional leaders in 1993. Traditional institutions had always been dynamic and adjusted to relate to the political and socio-economic conditions of the movement. The restored institutions must be seen in that light today. They must relate to the Uganda of today and not of yesterday; that is how they have survived elsewhere. That is how they are going to survive here. Politicians have done all they can to manipulate them for short-term political gain. These institutions should be outside the domain of politicians for their wellbeing requires statesmen well able to look beyond the political advantages of the moment. Uganda cannot achieve much development on her own. Modern economies need markets for their goods, they need skills from wherever they get them; they need technology; they need capital from outside their borders. The developed economies of the world are ganging together further to exploit economies of size. We cannot expand agricultural production if we cannot sell what we produce; we cannot build factories whose goods we cannot sell. We, therefore, need an economic community at the sub-regional, regional and continental levels presidents Moi, Mkapa and myself recently launched the secretariat for East African Co-operation. I intend to strengthen it with my colleagues in Kenya and Tanzania, this co-operation and to support our co-operation in IGGAD and COMESA. We shall never lose sight of our ultimate objectives of the economic and political union of Africa, and the strengthening of sub-regional and regional co-operation is definitely the way there. My government has consistently pursued a policy of good neighbourliness. Of course it takes two to make good neighbours and we have always had the faith that our policy and behaviour should be reciprocated by our neighbours. Our policy is on course and we shall keep it that way. We have good neighbourly relations with all our neighbours except one. Even to this one odd neighbour we say, embrace our hand of friendship. Although we are a small, poor country, what happens in the world beyond our borders and our region concerns us. We value peace for ourselves and for all humanity and we shall always support the lovers and makers of peace wherever they may be; we appeal for peace and support, the efforts of the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations, amongst others, to make peace. Once again, I thank Ugandans for the confidence bestowed in me and for the mature way most of them conducted themselves during the campaigns and the poll. observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32159:ugandans-must-reject-those-acting-outside-constitution-says-museveni&catid=96:special-series&Itemid=69
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:58:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015