Fury over Museveni tribal talk

Fury over Museveni tribal talk President Museveni By Mercy Nalugo, Citizen Correspondent, Kampala has come under intense criticism for suggesting that elective leadership positions in the oilrich Bunyoro region be exclusively occupied by ethnic Banyoro. A collection of law makers, an academic, politicians and analysts accuse President Museveni of promoting sectarianism and setting the country on a dangerous path of ethnicised politicking in breach of the Constitution. Prof. Ogenga Latigo, the Leader of Opposition, told Sunday Monitor by telephone yesterday that the President is trying to apply the divide-andrule tactics that the colonialists employed to overrun resistant African communities. "The monster of tribalism will come back to eat him and he will have nowhere to run," said Prof. Latigo, "It is very sad because you cannot divide your country the same way the President is doing. You will only have conflict." The Agago County MP said President Museveni has used the creation of new districts to polarise previously harmonious communities and setting one against the other so that all of them become weak and vulnerable to his political manipulations. Renown Makerere University political historian, Mr Ndeebesa Mwambutsya, said the President�s highly divisive missive, appears packaged to appease the Banyoro who were clamoring for a share of the newly- found oil wealth, but it will "open a Pandora's box" for the country. "In Uganda, a President's statement is taken as a policy and what Mr Museveni said will incite the Banyoro against immigrants and this will infect the whole country; contradicting national integration and the President's patriotism project," he said.