UNDP rep cautions Ugandan youth on patriotism

By Joanita Tushabe & David Lumu 

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative to Uganda, Ahunna Eziakonwa Onochie, has advised the youth to love their country, develop a sense of integrity and be innovative if they are to achieve their goals.
 
Speaking during the democracy dialogue organized by the Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG) in commemoration of the International Democracy Day today at Hotel Africana in Kampala, said that she was shocked to learn that most Ugandan youth could not sing all the stanza’s of the national anthem.

Eziakonwa- Onochie warned that if the youth don’t learn to love the country enough then Uganda might not benefit from their youthful ideas.

“Young people can’t even sing the national anthem; that is not good, the love for your country will stimulate the need to protect the country, not to destroy it,” she said, imploring the youth to learn the Uganda national anthem, especially “Oh Uganda the land that feeds us,”  a line in the third stanza of the anthem.

Commenting on the theme of the dialogue, ‘engage young people in democracy,’ Ahunna  urged Government and other stakeholders to work out mechanisms that can be used to direct the demographic dividends that the youth have.

Ahunna also advised the youth not to take for granted various democratic platforms that the Government has provided for youth in Uganda, especially the National Youth Policy, the Constitution and the National Youth Council.

Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, who opened the dialogue, agreed with Ahunna that Ugandans are not patriotic pointing out that some Ugandans prefer going to leisure clubs to drink wine instead of voting and that she has seen top officials at Government functions murmuring instead of singing the national anthem.

Comparing Uganda to Western democracies, Kadaga urged political parties in Uganda to step-up and take responsibility of grooming young people to contribute to manifesto rather than using them to cause destruction. 

The key note speaker, Dr. Thelma Awori said that many Ugandans she has interacted with have fear that if they challenge the status qou, a semblance of the bad experiences such as wars that characterized the past regimes could surface.

However, Ivan Rugambwa, a KFM radio panelist and a student of Mass Communication at Makerere University in his submission on behalf of the youth present blamed the Universities for not providing the nursery bed for political parties to pick future leaders.