The National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni, has said young people seeking leadership should lead by example to win the trust of those they seek to serve.
Museveni, while meeting NRM youth leaders from Bugisu sub-region on Wednesday, said the concept of youth had been misconstrued and abused.
He insisted that young people seeking positions of leadership in the country must conduct themselves in a way that is not antithetical to societal norms.
“You are taking drugs and you say you want to be a youth leader. We need youth who are spiritually and morally upright and productive. That is what I always tell my grandchildren,” he said.
Commenting on the current scientific campaigns, candidate Museveni welcomed the idea of the youth fully participating in the mobilization exercise together with the already existing NRM structures in the villages, and urged them to engage those of the opposition and ask them what they are opposing.
“If it is corruption, yes, we are also totally against corruption. It can be worked on, but now what are they opposing? There is no opposition in Uganda that I cannot defeat because they have no logic. When in Luwero fighting, we could approach the UPCs and ask them what they were fighting for. I would engage them with our ideology and they would change immediately to support our cause,” he said.
Museveni welcomed the idea of the youth taking over the ideological NRM heritage, saying they, too, during their youth took up the heritage of the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.