Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has called his leading critic, musician-turned-politician Bobi Wine, as an “enemy of the country’s prosperity”, in an interview with the BBC.
President Museveni is seeking a sixth term in office in 2021 after being in power for 33 years.
Bobi Wine, the leader of The People Power movement, accuses the president of overseeing a system of oppression.
Mr Museveni rejected the accusation telling the BBC’s Alan Kasujja that his government is not repressive, but dealing with Bobi Wine as an enemy.
“Bobi Wine went to America and said that people should not come invest in Uganda. That means he is an enemy of progress in Uganda. When you go and tell foreigners that they should not come and invest in our country, you are waging war on our prosperity. So why then do you want to come and take advantage of that prosperity?”
“That may be one of the reasons [for cancellation of Bobi Wine’s concerts] I suspect, I have not talked to the police in details.”
President Museveni said he still has unfinished business in Uganda as president and will only leave if asked to do so by his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.
“My home is waiting for me, but we have issues as Uganda to deal with. It is those issues that make us do what we decide to do politically along with our colleagues. If the fraternity of NRM think that they no longer require the contribution of the elders then we will happily go and do other things.”
“We are not here for a show, we are not theatre goers, we are people who are here to deal with very big issues of Uganda and Africa.”
Mr Museveni said that he saw unemployed youth in Uganda not as a “threat but an opportunity”.
He added that there were unexploited opportunities in agriculture and IT which young people should be willing to go for.
“One of the issues is the mentality because some of the people are looking for white-collar jobs instead of looking for [other jobs], there’s commercial agriculture, there’s industries, factories and services and IT, we are deliberately working on them to create jobs for our people,” he said.
The EastAfrican
