Sunday, June 20, 2010

Time for Ugandan young people

I will use one slogan of a political organization no that I belong there, but because it is a bit relevant to what I am going to talk about. But basically it says, there nothing as important as an idea that whose time has come.

A few weeks ago, when president Museveni was addressing parliament, a number of his ministers were completely in slumber. The press was marred with pictures of these ministers and the world was able to see the nature of people that represent us in parliament.

This is not something that should be taken lightly. The majority of the people the cameras brought we those who have out lived their time in parliament and need a checking. There is need to have a vibrant parliament that should deliberate people’s concerns for the development of our country.

This can be done if young people come up to actively participate in politics. Everyone should get worried because the nation is getting a vacuum in the leadership circles. The old have adamantly refused to leave power and the youth are also reluctantly failing to unseat these outdated leaders. This vacuum will one day or the other affect those who still have more years to live.

There is a gap being created between the young and old generations. Our leaders are aging off without having replacements. Due to high rates of unemployment, whoever tries to come up, (youth aspirants) they are compromised in the sense that they are given some little money to step down.

There is need for a fresh breath on the political scene other than having the same dancers on the stage. There are regions who are sending young, educated representatives who are capable of articulating clearly issues in the house. But there those who do not care about and instead send people who doze off during the parliamentary sittings and ‘wake up to vote’ as one politician put it.

This is a trend that needs to be worked upon and it can only be dealt with when the youth actively gets involved in politics. There a lot to be done, if there is patriotism in this country, our leaders should make politics attractable to the youth such that they can get involved. Otherwise a great number of our leaders will get haunted even in their graves for mistakes they made by not allowing the young get involved in the running of our nation.