Museveni: We do not have citizens in exile

By Najib Mulema

President Yoweri Museveni has said that National Resistance Movement (NRM) is the most tolerant ruling party Uganda has ever had.

The president made the revelation during a thanksgiving ceremony to mark the golden jubilee in marriage of Mr. Matthew and Mrs. Sheeba Rukikaire that took place on Sunday at the couple’s residential home in Kizungu, Makindye Division, Kampala. The occasion also marked Matthew Rukikaire’s 80th birthday anniversary.

He said people in the opposition or against his government are able to move freely in Uganda without any interference.

“Unlike during the past regimes, as I speak today, we do not have citizens in exile. Anybody in opposition or against the government is here in the country, which was not the case during the past regimes. We have a score of many achievements and many are yet to be realised. The country has conducted several successful regular, free and fair national elections at an interval of five years. With this political track record of NRM, we have a good future of political leadership,” Museveni noted.

Adding, “One of the causes of the bush war was the problem of deliberate recruitment in the Army on sectarian lines and extra-judicial killings of innocent Ugandans,”

The president also commended the family of the Rukikaires, for the contribution to the political stability of a new Uganda.

“This family has made a commendable and good contribution to the government towards the struggle for the re-birth of political stability of a new Uganda. My coming here, therefore, is to acknowledge the crucial contributions at a crucial time of the Rukikaires’ to this country in which I, personally, have been involved for the last fifty years struggling for political unity,” he disclosed.

Rukikaire thanked President Museveni for honouring the family invitation. He said that he was happy with the contributions that he made towards Uganda’s national development.