Former Forum for Democratic Change-FDC President Col Dr. Kizza Besigye has hinted at retiring from opposition politics in four years’ time.
Speaking at a memorial service for the Busiro South MP late John Patrick Musisi at Namuzzi village, Ssisa sub-county in Wakiso on Friday, Besigye said the Bible he believes in prescribed seventy as the life expectancy and he is currently sixty-six, meaning “I have four years to continue with this struggle.” He said that during the remaining period, he would commit his entire effort to fight until freedom is achieved.
Besigye criticized those who do not believe in an age limit in the performance of given functions, adding that the age limit was a biblical prescription.
Earlier on he had scoffed at as futile efforts by the opposition in Uganda to dislodge the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) from power using the ballot. He said that the same NRM-suffocating political parties will never allow those parties to freely organize.
He said he had listened to the Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LOP) Mathias Nsamba Mpuuga outlining the legislative agenda for 2023. Besigye said the year 2026 would not be a magical year even if the agreed joint opposition candidate wins because Museveni is the Electoral Commission” and the “courts in case of electoral litigation.”
Besigye said the late Patrick Musisi who died in 2005 still lives because of the struggle he started, the struggle for freedom still continues through the people he mentored. He said Musisi worked for the unity of the opposition to struggle for that freedom and the conditions he was militating against still obtain as critical opposition is denied space and assembly.
He also noted the rampant illegal arrests and abductions, all of which he said needed Ugandans working together to make a new beginning and a transition before they can think of political ideologies and colors.
In attendance was a host of current and former MPs, politicians, and religious and cultural leaders who attended the ceremony. MPs included Muwanga Kivumbi (Butambala), Dr Lulume Bayiga (Buikwe South), Joseph Sewungu (Kalungu West), Robert Ssekitoleeko (Bamunanika), Betty Ethel Naluyima (Woman – Wakiso) and Asumani Basaalirwa (Bugiri).
Other politicians included former MPs Ibrahim Kasozi, Salam Musumba, Latiff Ssebaggala, and Paul Mwiru.
Sadam Gayira, President of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) said the NRM was a tree already eaten by ants and the opposition only needed to push in a common direction or else that tree hits the house and animals.
Dr. Bayiga said that the late Musisi generously invested in them as budding politicians in the Uganda Young Democrats-UYD.
Samuel Lubega Mukaku, said the opposition was not making any gains when he sees an opposition party recruiting from a fellow opposition party.
