{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Youths heckle Gen Museveni over district
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Youths heckle Gen Museveni over district
• Youths: We want district now!
• President: Keep quiet and do not disrupt me!
From the 1960s through to the early 1990s, Bukedi sub-region used to be the hub of cotton growing in the country. Today, most ginneries in the area have become desolate after years of not functioning. Many locals have abandoned cotton growing because of the low prices offered on the world market and have taken on to other crops like rice, maize and sunflower.
Sports betting houses have also sprouted in the major towns of the sub- region and the fact that they are a major attraction for the youths could be indication of the high levels of youth unemployment.
But all is not gloom and doom. In Pallisa, Kibuku and Budaka, there are signs of prosperity. In many places, grass-thatched houses have given way to mabaati (iron-sheet-roofed) houses while maize milling plants dot many trading centres.
In Tororo district, the mother town of the sub-region, business is thriving. New hotels have come up and at night in the municipality, the twinkling neon lights invite dwellers to partake of the nightlife in the numerous entertainment spots.
President Museveni, the NRM flag bearer, campaigned here for most part of last week with a message of hope and a better future for the sub- region if it votes for him in the 2016 election.
YOUTH HECKLE MUSEVENI
Yet his biggest headache appeared to be the constant demand for creation of new districts. This demand reached fever pitch in Butebo, Pallisa on Thursday when the crowd engaged in a confrontation with the president.
"Let us first work on the things that benefit all of us like roads and electricity, then we can look into the demand for a district," Museveni said, hoping it would cool the situation.
But a group of rowdy youths shouted: "No, we want it now" leading the president to reply: "Keep quiet and do not disrupt me."
They did not. Instead, they continued shouting as Museveni just looked on. Later, the president brought the situation to order when he said Butebo district would be created in 2017 after government has consolidated its efforts in fighting poverty and after it has built crucial infrastructure like roads.
Museveni also confronted the long-standing demand for a new district when he campaigned in Tororo county on Friday. The decades-old demand was popularised in 2005 when one of the residents chewed a rat at a public rally attended by the president. The demand has not been met largely because of the misunderstanding between the Iteso and Jopadhola over the boundaries of the new district.
The migrant Iteso, who are the majority and live in the more prosperous parts of town, say the new district should encompass parts of the municipality but the Jopadhola, who are the indigenous group and live on the margins of the municipality, say this proposition will leave them further marginalised. Their proposal is to create a district whose boundaries do not veer into the municipality. The municipality, they say, should not be dominated by any ethnic group.
Campaigning in Mella sub-county, which falls in the newly-created Tororo county South constituency, Museveni said the two groups need to reach an amicable solution to their dispute.
"You people have put me on tension. When one group comes to Entebbe (State House), they say if you don't do this, we shall kill you. Then another group comes and says if you do this, we shall kill you. I have been busy but after the elections, we shall sit down and resolve this issue once and for all," Museveni said at Mella primary school grounds.
The incumbent said by accepting to carve another constituency from Tororo county, he had behaved like a father who, having promised to buy a coat for a son, purchased a shirt as a consolation. The coat, he said, will be bought at a later date.
Later in Merikit sub-county, Museveni told the people that they had blocked the drinking straw to the pot containing government services the moment they voted FDC's Geoffrey Ekanya as their MP.
"I don't know that young man [Ekanya]. I have never seen him yet I am the one with the money. [By voting for him] you just helped him to get a job and fight his personal poverty. Whatever I have done for you, I do it through imagination," Museveni said.
Ekanya told The Observer on phone on Saturday that he was not moved by Museveni's remarks about him.
"The people there know what I have done for them and that is the reason they have been voting for me. I cannot be scared by what Museveni has told them," Ekanya said.
AGRICULTURE
Throughout his campaigns in Bukedi, Museveni told people to desist from the practice of land fragmentation, saying this will drive them deeper into poverty. He urged the people to find a way of utilising the land collectively and only share money that accrues from the economic activities conducted on the land.
Museveni said once the fertilizer plant under construction at Sukulu hills, Tororo, is complete, farmers will reap more from agriculture because their production will go up.
On Saturday afternoon, Museveni was in Tororo municipality where he addressed a huge lively gathering. The demand for new districts aside, Museveni's support remains strong in Bukedi sub-region. He garnered 70 per cent of the vote here in 2011. But in parts like Tororo, there is a visible presence of the opposition, notably the FDC.
Ofwono Opondo, the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre, said he was confident Museveni would score more than 70 per cent in Bukedi.
"You just have to look at what government has done for the people; the roads, the electricity, the piped water in towns…people will definitely reward Museveni for this," Opondo told us in Mella.
NRM DIVISIONS
Yet there remain divisions amongst local leaders which could undermine party support here. Sarah Opendi, the minister of state for health who lost in the primaries for the Tororo Woman seat, blamed Tanga Odoi, the chairperson of the NRM electoral commission, for the party woes in Tororo.
"He simply did not like any of the NRM leaders in Tororo; that is why almost all incumbent NRM MPs lost in the primaries. When we sent him our petitions, he simply just sat on them," Opendi said on Friday. Odoi hails from West Budama North in Tororo district and until last year, he was considering taking on Fox Odoi, the incumbent, before he was given the EC post.
In Budaka, Museveni reconciled minister Sarah Kataike Ndoboli and Pamela Kamugo, who defeated her in the NRM primaries for the woman district parliamentary seat. Kataike is standing as an independent.
President Museveni started his tour of Busoga sub-region yesterday (Sunday) with rallies in Namutumba district. The sub-region has previously voted overwhelmingly for the NRM but increasingly, the opposition is gaining ground, particularly in the peri-urban areas. It must be remembered that in August, FDC's Dr Kizza Besigye held a mammoth rally in Iganga municipality, which set tongues wagging within the NRM circles.
ekiggundu@observer.ug
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