President Museveni urges Somali government to promote unity, not clans or tribes

By Godfrey Olukya   24-2-2014 

Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has urged the Somali government to work hard towards the promotion of unity among the people of Somalia in order to promote economic development. He said the promotion of clans and tribes will make Somalia lost.

“The future of your people is not in the clans or tribes of Somalia but in the whole of Africa. The issue of clans and tribes make Somalia lost,” Museveni said.

The President was yesterday speaking during a meeting he held with the Somali delegation led by the Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed at State House Nakasero.

He said leaders must help the people to overcome this ideology of tribalism.

“Like in Uganda before our Independence, the traditional chiefs who ruled Uganda before the British, the Bantu and the Nilotics, the chiefs were busy with selfish ambitions to take resources from the people. The chief is a parasite who does not promote unity among the people because they fear to lose their authority. When the Europeans came, they also manipulated that through introduction of religion. One of the parties was for Catholics, another for the Protestants and another was for the tribes… and because of this we could not build the army,” he said.

The President said they started their students’ movement in 1960s to fight sectarianism of tribe, religion and discrimination against Women.

“We had to show our people that their ideology was bankrupt,” he said.

He said that  his people from Ankole (a tribe in Uganda) are prosperous because of the people from Kampala who buy their cattle and milk among other products because they cannot buy what they produce.

He urged the Somalis to overcome their ideological thinking and promote unity for development for the good of their country, adding that once this ideology is overcome, building of the army, other institutions and economy through revenue collection will be easy.

The Prime Minister of Somalia Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed thanked President Museveni for giving support to the Somalis. He said the government of Somalia is working towards the economic development of Somalia by first identifying the challenges and the priorities of the country. He said they will follow the counsel of President Museveni for the good of Somalia.

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