Countrymen, countrywomen and, especially, the Bazzukulu. Greetings.
I was in Arusha yesterday for the EAC summit, where Somalia was admitted as the eighth country.
The EAC now has a combined population of more than 300 million People and a land area of 2,104,210.82 Sq. miles. This is about 56% of the size of the territory of the USA. Remember that the minimum target of economic integration is to deal with the prosperity of our People.
The question that the post-independence leaders of Africa had to answer was: “Where does prosperity come from?” “Does it come from begging from other countries or even from the Governments of our respective countries?” The answer is: “No. Sustainable prosperity can only come from every adult to be engaged in producing a good or a service that he or she can sell, get income and address his or her prosperity issues!”
Government spending can deal with some aspects of social issues such as health, education, etc., but not all the issues of prosperity beyond putting in place an enabling atmosphere for wealth creation (peace, infrastructure, policy stimuli, etc.).
If all the adults engage in producing goods or services, then who buys those goods or services? Are the internal markets of our respective countries enough to support the sustainable prosperity of our People? The answer is that the internal markets are not enough because if internal markets of countries were enough, why would countries like China or India, each with 1.5bn People, still struggle to sell their products in other markets? Africans not addressing this issue is the highest form of okulambaala (nino, kwebaka, kugwejegyera, sleeping).
It is, therefore, a source of satisfaction that the NRM, right from 1986, started, in concert with our brothers of Kenya and Tanzania, initially, working on the restoration of the EAC which had collapsed in 1977 on account of the tensions caused by the coming to power of Idi Amin in Uganda in 1971.
It is, therefore, a great source of satisfaction to see how it has grown. I salute Mwalimu who was still alive but out of Government who supported us through the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation.
I salute the Wazee Hassan Mwinyi, Arap Moi, Ben Mkapa, Mwai Kibaki that helped in the resurrection of the nucleus of the EAC. Thereafter, the leaders of Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and DRC brought their countries into the EAC. I salute them.
Now Somalia has come in. Salutations to the Somali leaders and People. In 1968, both Somalia and Zambia, had applied to join the EAC. It was Amin’s coup in Uganda that interfered with those developments.
Meanwhile, I must update you on the hunt for the pigs in Congo. Our aircrafts have not yet again visited them since when I last briefed you on account of weather and also ensuring that we get the right targets.
We are always coordinating with the very friendly Congolese Army to ensure that we do not make mistakes of attacking wrong targets.
However, on the ground, yesterday, our squad of the 11th battalion fought with the group of the Tanzanian Arab, Abu wa Kasi, that sent the group that cut the children of Lhubiriha Secondary School. They killed two terrorists and captured two women.
I have told the UPDF to enable those women to talk to the media so that Ugandans and Congolese share a bit with us what we know about those terrorists.
Within Uganda, the security forces in the Kasese area are hunting for a group led by a Congolese by the names of Kamusu, the remnants of Njovu’s group that was responsible for the killing of the tourists.
We are sharpening our detection and search techniques because it seems the terrorists have found the forests of Congo too risky, and they are trying to infiltrate back into Uganda in small groups. Abu wa Kasi’s group was attacked at Mayongosi, Southeast of Beni Town.
The task now is to detect and destroy the small groups either in Uganda or Congo near the towns. “Mr. Museveni said
