This Monday, vans carrying 289 NRM youth leaders who had just been passed out at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi arrived at Kololo ceremonial grounds.
The youth had just completed two months of ideological training.
Majority of these young people were wooed to abandon Amama Mbabazi’s camp during the recently-concluded presidential elections.
An office was opened for their operations in the leafy suburb of Bugolobi under the leadership of Molly Kamukama.
They were told to dismantle Mbabazi’s structures which they had created for the 2016 presidential campaigns.
Indeed, they performed extremely well to an extent that most of the former premier’s mobilisers were lured back to NRM.
The President and First Lady Janet Museveni would later meet the youth at State House Entebbe to show their gratitude.
During the course of their work, the youth were promised jobs and funds to start businesses.
One year down the road, the youth are yet to see the party’s commitment to provide them employment opportunities.
So, when the vans arrived at Kololo, about 90 angry youth decided to proceed to State House Entebbe.
On arrival, Museveni was being chauffeured out of the premises.
The youth decided not to leave State House until they met with Museveni.
“We were promised jobs but we don’t know whether this will happen. Even the Shs 500,000 facilitation received after two months of training is not enough,” one of the youth revealed to ChimpReports.
Security
It is understood that Special Forces Commander, Maj Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba sent a high ranking army officer to listen to the youth’s complaints and record their names.
The officer called for patience among the youth, promising to relay their concerns to his boss.
The youth on Tuesday decided to hang around State House, waiting for Museveni’s intervention.
NRM officials who spoke to this website expressed alarm that youth who had just received ideological training would start their fresh political journey with a protest.
“It’s so embarrassing to us and the president. These young people must exhibit the highest level of seriousness, patience and loyalty to the party,” said a top NRM official who preferred anonymity so as to speak freely.
But the youth say NRM officials did not properly communicate to the president that they needed opportunities as soon they left Kyankwanzi.
“They left us there hanging there; we don’t know whether we will be called. They didn’t do the right thing.”
Patriotism
While passing out the youth, Museveni said that if more Ugandans and Africans could adopt the National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) four principles of patriotism, pan-Africanism, socio-economic transformation and democracy, Uganda and Africa would become prosperous and also get strategic security.
Mr. Museveni revealed that after he had realized extensive gaps in building leadership skills in the country, he directed that patriotic youth be “identified and trained to become ambassadors of the four core principles of NRM.”
The President, therefore, encouraged the youth to pick interest in commercial agriculture to take advantage of the Operation Wealth Creation programme adding that there are four sectors that create jobs.
“The four sectors of the economy include commercial agriculture, industries, services and information communications technology,” he said.
He informed the youth leaders and cadres that the middle-income status would be easy to achieve in Uganda if the exports increased and the imports decreased.
“In the local currency, the economy is growing. The major weak link is not exporting much but importing more,” he said.
The Director of Kyankwanzi National Leadership Institute, Brigadier David Kasula, noted that the course had equipped the students for employment in various sectors of the economy.
“The ideology that has been taught to these youth leaders will form the basis for the discipline needed in order to achieve middle income status,” he said.
Mr. Lawrence Mulindwa, who is former President of the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA), said he would employ some of the youth in his companies.