{Dokolo- The crowd attending President Museveni’s rally in Kangai Sub–county, Dokolo District, yesterday was left in stitches after the incumbent addressed them in Luo.}
“Irio [translated as “how are you?”], said Mr Museveni, a Bantu. “Irio maber [We are fine],” the crowd responded, and then laughed.
Reading from a white piece of paper, the President said some ‘people think I do not know Lango’, before he asked for a translater since he is not fluent in Lango, a Luo dialect.
Mr Museveni said the Langi should not forget his government disarmed the Karimojong warriors who used to raid their cattle.
“When we say ‘support the NRM’, it is not just campaigning, no. It is to support stability,” Mr Museveni said.
“When Mzee Obote was overthrown [in 1985], the Uganda Army was 8,000. Amin’s army was 20,000. In Karamoja, there were 40,000 guns in the hands of illiterate people, villagers. You know how you suffered here in Lango.”
He said then, in Nakapiripirit District, he interacted with a woman who had lost nine successive husbands to lawless, armed Karimojong warriors.
“Husband acel [the first husband], otoo (died), husband aryo (the second), otoo, husband adek [the third), otoo, husband angwen [the fourth], otoo, killed by the Karimojong,” Mr Museveni said, prompting the crowd to again spontaneously roar in laughter.
Mr Museveni, whose rallies in Luweero and Nakaseke districts featured a hovering yellow helicopter, arrived in Kangai from Kampala at midday in an army–green chopper.
Crowds screamed as they flashed the NRM party right thumb up sign as the President drove from where the chopper had landed to the Amatiburu Primary School, about two kilometres away.
Mr Museveni promised his government would tarmac the 84–kilometre Dokolo to Namasale Town Council road.
Currently, it takes two hours to drive between the two towns but the distance would be reduced to half if the road is tarmacked. Boniface Anyai, a school dropout, said government should endeavour to ensure many children from low–income households get government scholarships.
Addressing another rally at Iguli Primary School in Dokolo District, Mr Museveni said Shs33 billion has been given to the Youth Fund this financial year and that government will keep “pushing it up” .
Earlier in the day, crime preventers were deployed to manage the crowd at Iguli.
Before the arrival of President Museveni, NRM supporters were given the party manifesto.
The State Minister for Northern Uganda, Ms Rebecca Amuge Otengo, also the Alebtong Woman MP, appealed to the people of Dokolo to support NRM in 2016 elections.
Musician Bebe Cool, alias Moses Ssali, in the company of four other artistes also entertained the crowds as they convinced voters to rally behind President Museveni for another term.
DAILY MONITOR
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