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Museveni first speech as a 5th term president
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President Yoweri Museveni Kaguta welcomes President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania during his swearing in for the fourth time as the president of the Republic of Uganda at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala on 12th-05-2011. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA
Posted Thursday, May 12 2011 at 16:16
President Museveni’s inaugural speech, delivered hours after he was sworn in for another five year term in office ended minutes before 3pm on Thursday at Kololo Independence Grounds.
The speech dwelt on strides made by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party over the last 25 years on Uganda’s economy, education, road networks and the delivery of social services.
President Museveni spoke against what he described as reactionary ideology (in reference to the opposition) and echoed his stated commitment to progressive ideas. He said the development of electricity, roads and the railways had been poorly handled in Uganda and most African countries, a problem he said the 6th Parliament should be blamed for.
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Find below the speech in full.
Speech by H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
President-Elect of the Republic of Uganda
At the SWEARING-IN CEREMONY
At Kololo, Kampala
Kololo-12th May 2011
Your Excellencies Heads of State and Government who have come to be with us today;
Your Excellency the Vice President of the Republic of Uganda;
Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda;
Your Lordship, The Hon. The Chief Justice of the Republic of Uganda;
Rt. Hon. Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly;
Your Excellencies Heads of Delegations;
Rt. Hon. Deputy Speaker of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda;
Your Ladyship, the Deputy Chief Justice of the Republic of Uganda;
Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda;
Your Royal Highnesses, the Traditional Leaders;
The Religious Leaders;
Hon. Ministers;
Your Excellencies High Commissioners and Ambassadors;
Hon. Members of Parliament;
The NRM fraternity in the whole Country;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
First of all, I congratulate all the Ugandans for the peaceful elections held on the 18th of February, 2011 and other elections held since that date.
Secondly, I thank the Ugandans for overwhelmingly voting for me with 68.3%, the NRM Members of Parliament with 73%, District Leaders (LCV) with 79% Sub-County leaders (LCIII) with 71%. I also congratulate the opposition parties on the seats they got in Parliament, the District Council seats they got and the Sub-County positions they won.
The landslide win by the NRM should inform all and sundry that the people of Uganda are, politically, mature people. They are able to disregard lies put out by opportunists and stand on the truth.
In the last 45 years, the NRM position is well known. We reject reactionary ideology and stand for progressive ideas. We reject sectarianism as well as parochialism and stand for nationalism. We reject puppetry and stand for the genuine independence of Uganda and other African countries. We reject stagnation of the Ugandan society and stand for its rapid transformation into a modern society.
In spite of the initial scarce resources, we have made huge advances in the last 25 years. We now have 8 million children in the primary schools, 1.5 million children in the secondary schools, 120,000 students in the universities and 53,729 in tertiary institutions. In 1986, the comparable figures were: 2.5 million children in the primary schools, 190,000 children in the secondary schools, 5,000 students in the university and 27,205 in tertiary institutions. We only had one university. We now have 28 universities (both public and private). In a period of almost 90 years, between 1894 when the British colonized Uganda and 1986 when the NRM took over Government, we had only 28,000 telephone lines. We now have over 14 million telephone lines. I can continue to bring out the NRM achievements in every sector. However, these examples suffice to highlight this point.
The NRM stands for Pan-Africanism, which translates into economic and political integration. We are very happy with the market of 130 million people of the East African Community. We are happy with the COMESA market of over 400 million people. We are also working for the political integration of East Africa together with our partners of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
The massive victory by the NRM in the February 2011 elections, therefore, was a triumph of progress and even revolutionary ideology over reactionary ideology. It was a triumph of Uganda’s patriotism over sectarianism and opportunism. We won overwhelming victory in all the regions of Uganda. Since creation, this is the first time Ugandans have coalesced into such a consensus. I would, therefore, call upon those who have been pushing sectarian ideas and pushing opportunism to join the national consensus instead of being desperate and embarking on disruptive schemes. Those disruptive schemes will be defeated just like the previous opportunistic schemes have been defeated.
Uganda is now on the verge of take-off to become a middle income country by 2016. In order for Uganda to accelerate her speed to a middle income status, we need to resolve one issue. Just as you cannot build a house without a foundation (musingyi, oruhazo), you cannot build a modern economy without modern infrastructure. By this, we mean: electricity, roads, the railway, piped water, telephones, ICT network, media, as well as social infrastructure in the form of schools, colleges, health units, etc. The importance of these elements of infrastructure is two fold. Social infrastructure produces healthy, educated and skilled human resource. The economic infrastructure, on the other hand, is very useful for the economy because it lowers the costs of doing business in the economy and, therefore, enterprises become more profitable. This, in turn, attracts more enterprises to Uganda which create more jobs, widens the tax base, etc.
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