Ugandan President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has said if he took the reckless decision of killing his longtime political rival Col Dr Kizza Besigye, it would have come back to haunt him.
Speaking during the State of the Nation Address on June 03, 2021, Mr Museveni unwise and bankrupt for someone to kill another because they do not agree on something.
“Why should I kill you because you are opposing me? If I am right and you are wrong, why do I kill you? I should preserve you and you continue making your mistakes so that people see that I am the one who is right and you are wrong,” he said.
The president noted that when you kill someone, you make him a hero because people would be saying he/she would have done wonders to them.
“There are so many people I would have killed for annoying me. One of them is Cecilia Ogwal (Dokoro Woman MP on FDC ticket). I used to call her the bad woman because she had really a bad tongue. But if I had killed her, she would be a hero now. People would be saying, if Cissy had not died, great things would have happened, but now they have nothing to say. It’s really bankrupt to kill people,” Mr Museveni remarked.
“If I had killed Besigye, he would be a hero now in the memory of the people. ‘Ohh Besigye would have done a big thing if he had lived, but he was killed’. That is how Jesus became a hero. If those Romans had not killed Jesus, I don’t know what would have happened. So, if you see groups that use assassinations, those are bankrupt groups,” he further remarked.
Mr Museveni’s comments following the attempted assassination of one of his army Generals, Edward Katumba Wamala. The 64-year-old four-star general escaped death by a whisker after gunmen shot at his car more than 50 times, but lost his daughter and driver.
Col Dr Besigye had been President Museveni’s close associate and a personal doctor since the times of the bush war that brought him to power in 1986, but the duo unglued in 1999, after Besigye wrote a document critical of the government, entitled “An Insider’s View of How the NRM Lost the Broad Base”.
In the document, Dr Besigye accused the NRM of becoming a sectarian kleptocracy and a one-man dictatorship. His four-time attempt to unseat Mr Museveni, however, hit a snag through elections, which Dr Besigye always claimed were marred by widespread rigging, violence and coercion of voters.
President Museveni is now set to rule the country for four decades after he sworn in for the 6th elective term following the January 2021 election where he defeated the musician-cum politician Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine with 58 per cent against 35 per cent.
About The Author
