DP Head Quarters
City House
- STUDENTS REPORT TO SCHOOL
On the morning of the 1st day of March, 2021, another set of children reported back to school after spending one year at home, the Democratic Party notes with concern that many parents are unable to return their children to school because of pecuniary difficulties arising from Covid19 Pandemic.
Education being the foundation of transformation and development in developing nations, the government should have focused on among others, giving out interest free loans to Ugandans whose businesses were crippled by the pandemic, now that that was not done, many Ugandans will not be able to support their children in school let alone failing to take them back.
We further note that, all students including those that had cleared their school dues to nill before the closure of schools in March last year are required to pay humongous sums of money under the pretext of Covid19 pandemic, this is unacceptable! We demand that government prevails over the situation lest we be flooded with unimaginable number of school dropouts which in our opinion can be calamitous to the nation.
Unfortunately, being a policy of the NRM establishment to only invest where the returns are to keep their system in power, they did not earmark funds to procure even the least and perhaps the cheapest of requirements, namely, facemasks for our children while going back to school.
That has in effect demonstrated the utmost level of callousness by the regime towards her citizenry. Ugandans should now realize that they are on their own
- DIALOGUE
On Friday 5th March, 2021 the IPOD Summit will convene its third meeting. As per the IPOD Memorandum of Understanding, which enshrines leadership on a rotational basis, this Summit will be chaired by the Chairman of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), and the agreed venue of the Summit is the Kololo Independence Grounds, the event will be broadcasted live on televisions and other media houses.
Important to note is that, on the 16th February, 2021, during his first press conference since the elections, the President General of DP, Hon. Norbert Mao while calling for an extraordinary IPOD Summit stated thus,
“… as DP we are extremely concerned with the reported cases of abductions, kidnaps, unlawful arrests, illegal detentions, torture and disappearances targeting opposition activists. These illegal activities are being blamed on the the security organs of the Uganda government. To date, scores of opposition activists are in detention and face charges before the court martial which continues to deny them bail without any lawful excuse. As a party committed to non-violence, rule of law and constitutionalism, we condemn these illegal acts of state terrorism in the strongest terms”
We cannot stop at condemnations only, we do believe that this is the time that the political parties should step forward and put an end to these troubling activities that flagrantly violate the rights of citizens. We therefore took it upon ourselves to interest the Chairman of the Summit of the Inter-Party Organization for Dialogue (IPOD) to convene an Extraordinary Summit aimed at discussing the reports of unlawful arrests, illegal detentions, malicious prosecutions, disappearances, kidnaps and torture. As we speak now, thousands of Ugandans are languishing in prisons, many have lost their lives!
We do strongly believe that a frank discussion by responsible representatives of IPOD member parties together with other non member political parties that may be invited as observers can allow for a proper diagnosis of the problem and information sharing that can lead to solutions.
Rather than informally condemning, castingating and crying while uttering words of vituperation, the Democratic Party being the party of ideas, we have determined to complain through one of the available formal structures , namely, IPOD.
Important to note is that, before the idea materialised Democratic Party through the President General consulted the leaders of the three of the IPOD member parties namely, JEEMA, UPC and FDC and they all agreed in unison that indeed, a high level meeting under the aegis of IPOD can be an important forum for dealing with mutual suspicions and ensuring that the armed forces adhere to the rule of law.
This approach is definitely better than trading accusations and grandstanding in the media.
It should be recollected that after DP suggesting the idea to the National Resistance Movement (NRM), it was embraced thus accordingly, the IPOD Council of Secretaries General working with the IPOD Secretariat met and agreed on a draft agenda. All IPOD member parties fully participated in the Council meeting that prepared the intended Summit.
Lastly, picking the conversation in the book of Job 1:6-12 and Isaiah 1:18 where God dialogues with Satan and invites a sinner to dialogue with him respectively, we are without doubt that dialoguing is godly and therefore the epitome of peace, tranquility and stability as such, we, following the aforementioned scenarios in the Bible, learn that dialogue should never be avoided.
Thank you
Okoler Opio Lo Amanu
DP Spokesperson
