Museveni condemns military coups in West Africa

Denouncing the takeovers with some criticism towards the West, the Ugandan strongman observed that, “what is happening now is going to take us back because civilian leaders fail to build strong armies."

"The problem happening in Africa today started in Libya. I would like to invite African leaders to sit down and exchange views on how to build strength in Africa,” Mr Museveni remarked during an anniversary to mark his 36^th year in power.

The African continental bloc has witnessed about ten –both peaceful and bloody- military power grabs over the last decade with at least five of these in the Sahel States.

“Then there’s a military coup like those in Mali, Guinea Bissau, Guinea. Those soldiers are not accountable to anyone since nobody elects them. We would have been very far if Idi Amin (former Ugandan President) didn’t waste a lot of our time,” the 77-year old political veteran who captured power in 1986 remarked at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala.  

Ringing a bell for African unity, Mr Museveni rallied West African states to "consult and bank on Uganda’s experience in dealing with political instability." 

“Here, we have surely built some strength. We have about 6,000 soldiers in Somalia. We shall get in touch with African leaders to see how to harmonize our thinking,” he noted.

Although Mr Museveni described an African army putsch as “time wasting [issues],” he admitted they can’t easily be dealt with as the orientation of coup plotters is anonymous sometimes.

“Another problem is that they are even ignorant but they pretend to know. They talk about war but they don’t even know how to fight,” he opined in sheer disapproval of junta regimes that are now in charge of more than six nations in the continent of over 1.3billion people.