Museveni: I'll sack my critics
By Sam Amanyire
Jan 13, 2004
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BUSHENYI - President Museveni has vowed to sack anyone who opposes him within the Movement. "I will continue sacking Movementists who oppose me since I can replace them with many people who want their jobs," Mr Museveni said here yesterday. "I still have power over my government," the President said while addressing local leaders at Bushenyi district council hall yesterday. In making the statement, Museveni was responding to a question by the former district chairman, Mr Yowasi Makaaru, who asked why prominent Movement leaders are expressing views different from the President's. At least two senior Movement leaders - former minister Eriya Kategaya and former Inspector General of Government Augustine Ruzindana - have opposed the official Movement position of wanting the two-term constitutional limits on the presidency lifted. Museveni yesterday repeated earlier remarks discounting Mr Ruzindana's contribution to the liberation struggle. "I met Ruzindana in 1974 and after three years he disappeared yet he claims to have been with me for 30 years," Museveni told the gathering. "These are some of the falsehoods these leaders have been peddling." Earlier in the day, while meeting farmers at Ruharo parish, the President said the Movement is undergoing an internal purge. "We are refining the Movement to get rid of people who call themselves leaders yet are lazy and talk aimlessly," he said. Museveni had visited Ruharo, which he is using as a demonstration for modern farming. Local families have been given heifers to rear, and vanilla vines and coffee seedlings to grow. Museveni told the crowd that he hates poor people and would like all people to be like him and his family. "[First Lady] Janet has never strapped a baby on her back or drawn water from a well on her head and I want all to be like her," Museveni told the peasants. He added that it is not good to stay among poor people because it is like a contagious disease. Museveni said he has transformed Nyabushozi, his home county, into a "modern area" compared to other places in the country. "If you go to Nyabushozi, there is a lot of development; permanent houses, good farms and people sending their children to university," he said. Museveni told the gathering that he invites delegations to his home in Rwakitura so that they can pass through Nyabushozi and draw lessons about how they can develop their own homes. "People of Nyabushozi are developed now; they are no longer the same but I am still above all of them," he said. Commenting about the Universal Primary Education programme, the President said the World Bank has agreed to provide lunch for school pupils if parents cannot afford it. He, however, said that the issue is still being discussed. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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