Are you one of those individuals who couldn’t help, but keep your eyes glued on TV with your ears so alert yesterday(Wednesday 12th December ,2018) as the Inter-Party Organisations for Dialogue (IPOD) summit took centre stage at Speke Resort Munyonyo?
Founded in 2009, IPOD is a forum for leaders of political parties with representation in Parliament to engage on matters of common interest. Only four political parties including; Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) DP, Justice Forum (Jeema) and National Resistance Movement (NRM), participated ,with FDC defiantly snubbing the dialogue.
Now, in case you missed out,worry not; here are some of the notable quotes from the different leaders;
DP’s Norbert Mao: “Democracy starts with dialogue but does not end with dialogue. It requires action and that is how we want to be judged…This is a battle of ideas not egos. Politics is not about arguing amongst each other. While politicians argue, mothers and children continue dying in hospitals.”
“Our goal now is for the country to see a peaceful transition of power, to see an army serve more than one regime. Mr Museveni, it will be wonderful if you attend a swearing in ceremony of a President who is not you.”he added causing cheers from the crowds
UPC’s Jimmy Akena: “I agree with Norbert Mao, I would also like to see President Kaguta Museveni witness a swearing in ceremony of a President that is not him. It is on such days that I get a feeling that as Ugandans we can do more if we offer ourselves more understanding. Many issues come out of lack of communication.”
NRM’s President Museveni: “I’m very happy to attend this dialogue because dialogue is the beginning of democracy. I don’t know why anybody who says he’s a democrat wouldn’t want dialogue, I always welcome the opportunity to dialogue. When you don’t dialogue, you miss opportunities to be understood clearly. Dialogue is a command from God. ‘’If you express desire for leadership then qualify it with whom to talk or not talk to, you betray that mandate. It explains why even while fighting, I got time to talk to the Okellos in Nairobi. I also had talks with Mzee Obote and even attended the relaunch of the DP at Grand Imperial Hotel. ‘’
The president also explained that he is into politics
‘’Let me clarify about my role in politics. Naturally, I am a cattle keeper that is my job. In my family, I was the first to get into politics. There are two key things that drove me into this; prosperity and strategic security.’’
‘’ I hear people like Mao talking about transition, how he would like to sit in the audience and see Museveni handing power; that is the most important thing for him. I don’t think really that is the most important. ‘’ He said
He added that, ‘’This is reason number one I’m in politics; It’s about the prosperity of our people. If you don’t deal with this; your talking only about elections. Elections for what? To do what ? To have new MPs? So, they do what? To have a new president so that he does what? Me I’m in politics because of the prosperity of our people. Number two, strategic security ; How can Africa be secure? Why was Africa colonized in the first place? ‘’
Justice Forum Party president, Asuman Basaalirwa: ‘’We are here to get assurances and commitments that from today on wards, this country must be guided by Human rights and freedoms as they appear in our constitution. We are here to get assurance and commitment that associational freedoms must be respected. We cannot live in a country. We cannot talk about multi-partism, without the critical aspects of the associational freedoms.’’ he said .
President Museveni: “Hon. Basalirwa has rightly convicted the Police and I totally agree, they should be more organized. The problem of assembly is not an issue, the only problem is the venue, what is your intention, and the message, what message are you giving? Political actors, you can have any other dreams but forget about chaos, then we shall not have a problem. On the issue of torture, we’re totally against torture but what you should know is that this country is growing, the soldiers that were beating people in that viral video were wrong, I called them and explained that to them. However, they came in because of the indiscipline of the political actors. Despite these weaknesses, Uganda is very stable, we shall correct those people, these problems are curable.”
President Museveni: “The Opposition is in danger of being whipped out because you miscalculate, you allow the NRM to be the one to solve the problems alone because you take the wrong position. What will whip you out is not that I say, it’s what you fail to do and what NRM does alone.”
”When we succeed alone, how will you survive? Right now, Uganda is exporting more to Kenya than what Kenya is exporting to Uganda and we’re just starting, people who are worried about this started attacking Chinese and robbing them, they want them to run away but we’ve now come in and we’re going to get them. These criminals caused some casualties, they killed Abiriga, Kaweesi, the Moslem clerics but we’re going to defeat them, and when we do succeed, I’ll say I fought alone, the opposition didn’t help,” he added.
