COMMENT: Mr President, I disagree with you on children from poor backgrounds

COMMENT | BENJAMIN AGABA | Dear President Yoweri Museveni, your recent remarks at the State of the Nation address and the reading of the national budget, both at Kololo Independence ground, have caught my attention. These are about employing children from rich families and appointing fishermen to your cabinet respectively.

I wish to respectfully disagree with you on your remarks about children from poor or humble backgrounds being the most corrupt since they have much need and pressure for money and that they work for money not passion.

As a youth who has grown up in Ntungamo town where you were born and specifically in Kyamate village where you attended your primary school, and having been part of the recently conducted elections where I was looking for both your presidential votes and mine as the Ntungamo municipality chairperson (Mayor), I have always heard and noted several theories and schools of thoughts about your childhood and family background.

Most of these have zeroed down to you coming from a humble (not rich), peasant and generous family of the now Late Amos Kaguta of Kikoni parish, Ntungamo.

Shwenkuru, I can authoritatively say that you have never stolen anything and this is derived from the speech you made during the Anti Corruption Walk in 2019 at Kololo Independence grounds where I vividly remember you saying that you have NEVER stolen anything. I strongly believe that your behavior of not stealing is because of your humble family background and parents who raised you with Christian and good spiritual morals.

“Charity begins at home”. I therefore wish to tell you that bad morals and behaviors aren’t a monopoly of those children from poor families, and I wish to implore you to stop thinking that it is only those from rich families that do not steal, NEVER. Plus, some of the rich parents you refer to; have actually become rich through being corrupt and theft. Just imagine what their children who have grown up seeing huge sums of stolen money hidden under beds will do.

Lastly, I was happy when I read through your latest appointed Cabinet full of Fishermen as you described them. Mr. President, I thank you for following Jesus’ way and thinking about the poor by appointing them in such powerful positions. Without going into each of their backgrounds, I am sure that most of them are from poor backgrounds hence being children of the poor.

On a lighter note, I want to believe that you were indirectly apologizing to the poor and showing your trust in them that they can and will actually perform better without being corrupt. I therefore forgive you. And since you once said that “obesity is also a sign of corruption hence you decided to cut weight from 106kgs to 76kgs”, I therefore wish to inform you that it is the children from the rich families that are the most obese.

I conclude by saying that the fight against corruption should not be about which family you come from or how you look but rather which morals you have. Still, I concurred with you during the anti corruption walk when you said that, “corruption is a spiritual problem and government recruitment should not be on basis of papers but integrity”.

I also thank God for your life and congratulate you upon your inauguration and swearing in as our President for the next 5 years and beyond if you contest and the people vote you again, God willing.

Secondly, I thank you for your vision and always being a champion of the East African and Pan Africanism spirit and shunning “okuhemuka” as evidenced by your will to keep the whole region peaceful and your efforts to expand our Ugandan market to the whole region, plus the recent funding of other projects outside Uganda for example the infrastructure development in DR Congo. Thank you!

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 Agaba is a former Mayoral Candidate, Ntungamo Municipality.

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