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MBARARA - President Yoweri Museveni has said
he will not hand over Kampala to Buganda kingdom. “The city is for
all Ugandans,” he said.
“We
shall never hand over Kampala to Buganda kingdom. This is nonsense.
Kampala is for us all,” Museveni said Monday night on Mbarara based
Radio West.
Museveni was responding to the moderator of the programme, Mr
Sulaiman Matojo, who asked about the fate of non-Baganda living in
the city in case it was handed over to the kingdom. Museveni said
Mengo, the seat of Buganda and Lukiiko, had its own
agenda.
“I have
said no to them. I will not allow a cultural leader to join
politics,” he said. He said, “I once invited all LC3, LC5 and
Movement chairmen from the 12 districts in Buganda but only six
opposed our idea (of two Nkiikos). This means Mengo is pursuing its
own line,” he said.
He said
talks between him and Mengo were initiated out of his own
hospitality. He said the talks were not lawful or binding.
Museveni’s remarks come after another round of talks failed to bear
any tangible results.
Buganda
stuck to its demands for federo and the 9,000 Mailo land. The two
parties are also deadlocked on the composition of the Lukiiko at
Mengo. The government proposes two Nkiikos, one cultural and the
other administrative, a position Buganda opposes.
Museveni said it is only through district councils or
Parliament that the issues in question can turn into law. “The
Lukiiko is not elected out of the 12 districts in Buganda.
The
Lukiiko neglects the district councils, they fear polls but when my
proposals go through Parliament, it will work. Talking to them does
not make any law. It is the district councils or Parliament,” he
said.
Museveni thanked the western region for not buying the idea
of Charter (bringing together districts). He said he was going to
monitor the Kampala-based radios CBS and Simba, which he accused of
using divisive language in their programmes.
He was
particularly responding to a caller who alleged that Simba and CBS
abused Museveni and therefore the President should send troops to
close them for a week. “You will not lose support for that,” the
caller had suggested.
Museveni responded, “That is a good question. I had not
bothered before. I don’t get angry for abusing me but those who
divide the people shall be dealt with. We shall listen and record
them (radios)”.
Asked
whether the government would compensate those who lost property in
the north and west, he said it needed a constitutional amendment to
allow the President to sanction such payments.
He said
those who lost commercial vehicles would be compensated although it
was not the government that burnt their property. Asked by a caller,
Mr Elius Kabagambe a teacher at Mutara in Bushenyi why most African
leaders get stuck in power and do not want to quit, Museveni said,
“Who in Uganda has stuck to power? There are always elections and if
some one is elected, he continues.”
Meanwhile, Robert Mwanje reports that Mengo dismissed the
president’s statements that they were not based on research. Buganda
local government minister Mr Arthur Bagunywa said that Ssempebwa’s
commission and Odoki’s report clearly indicated that the majority
wanted federal system of governance in Buganda. “That’s his personal
thinking which is not based on research,” Bagunywa said.
He said
Buganda’s delegation to the talks on federo is composed of people
who called for federo status in the Constitutional Review
Commission. | 
