President Museveni Accuses Foreign Entities of Orchestrating March To Parliament

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has accused foreign entities of orchestrating the March to Parliament demonstrations.

On Tuesday, police arrested over 100 youths for engaging in a March to Parliament. The youths were marching in protest of the reported rampant corruption in the house.

At the beginning of the year, a number of digital activists with Agora and Public Square unearthed a pattern of irregular expenses by Parliament. This included the Shs 1.7 billion service awards to four backbench Parliamentary Commissioners.Another irregularity was the unexplained Corporate Social Responsibility Budget for the office of the Speaker. This set the tone for a year where Speaker Anita Among’s house was dogged with corruption scandals.Currently, five MPs are on remand in Luzira Prison over corruption-related charges.

However, the protest, which was largely peaceful, was quelled by a beefed-up security presence in the capital.

Reacting to the protests via his Twitter account, President Museveni lashed out at the youths for trying to disrupt business.

“That demonstration had two bad elements. Element no. 1 was funding from foreign sources that are always meddling in the internal affairs of Africa for the last 600 years ─ slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, genocide, economic exploitation, etc. All those involved should know that Uganda is not a neo-colony where those shallow schemes can be deployed.” President Museveni said.

The President also commended the police for what he called foiling a bad demonstration. Similarly, he castigated the youths for trying to be agents of imperialism.

“It is possible, that some of the participants, did not know of the planned foreign funding. Plus the planned bad things. That is why, they should have listened to the police advice, not to go on with the demonstration. But they rubbished the police advice.” President Kaguta.

However, he encouraged the youths to coordinate with the police if they are indeed patriotic. By press time, the demonstrations had entered day two with over 100 people in state custody.