Strong economy is key for security – Museveni

“You cannot deal with security threats unless you also deal with the economy. The economy must be strong,” he said. 

The delegation comprised at least 48 participants among them, 11 sponsor directing staff (DS) and 34 students. 

The participants were from nine countries, including Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Bangladesh, Kingdom of Eswatini, Egypt, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. 

The President asked the delegation to borrow a leaf from Uganda’s liberation story, saying it was a failed State like Somalia and others but he and others took a holistic picture. 

He said though Uganda had more than half a million Ugandan refuges in South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), the situation was reversed. 

He cautioned against the issue of promoting identity, religion, tribe and gender, as opposed to interests, adding that it is important to ensure that people live a prosperous life in a modern way by having enough food, clothing, houses, education, and health. 

“In order to do that, you need money. And to get money you need to engage in the production of goods and services. If you don’t get money through production, the alternative is to beg money from other people,” he said. 

For instance, he told the delegation that Uganda had a big problem of subsistence farming where people would produce for ‘eating’ and forget about production for the ‘pocket’ money. 

“Where I come from, they are cattle keepers. They produce milk, beef and matooke. They cannot sell their products to themselves since they produce similar items. This presents the first wealth creation principle of patriotism. This gives them room to sell their products to the people in Kampala and other parts of the country. Then the money they get they use it to buy other items they need like clothes from Kampala and other regions in Uganda,” he said. 

He noted that with the surplus production comes the principle of Pan-Africanism where surplus goods are sold to other countries, adding that the third principle is socio-economic transformation. 

“Here Africans are tasked to run away from staying in grass thatched houses, stop using muscle power. This is done through sensitising them on how to change to modern agro-production,” he said. 

On the principle of democracy, the President said it allows all political parties to get involved in free and fair elections hence a political leader will serve all people irrespective of their identity.

The team leader and college commandant, Brig Gen SD Ghuliku, said they selected Uganda as their case study under the theme: ‘Regional Blocs combined combat readiness to handle emerging security threats’. 

He noted that the wisdom they got from President Museveni during their visit will reinforce their military skills. 

“We are indebted to the East Africa Community (EAC) and other regional blocks where each one from the group belong, to safe guard the peace and security of own people and be at the forefront in the military cooperation and integration of their countries as they will be directed by their leaders so as to be able to mitigate or eradicate the emerging security threats within their communities,” he said.