Saleh won’t stand for president

By Hamis Kaheru LT. GEN. Caleb Akandwanaho (Salim Saleh) yesterday said he will not stand for the presidency in 2006 because he is not capable.“You praise me but you don’t know my head. The only head which can manage is my brother (President Yoweri Museveni’s),” he said in Luganda.Saleh, who was rumoured dead while in Europe a few weeks ago, was addressing a crowd of about 500 fans in Nakivubo Stadium.“When I came back, I heard people saying, ‘We want Saleh to stand’. Yesterday some radios were saying, ‘Saleh wants to be president,’” he said.“The day I become president, I will go to Bank of Uganda, carry away all the money, bring it here and we share it. That will be the end of the country. Is that what you want?” he asked the cheering crowd. He said even if he was interested in becoming president, the Movement has mechanisms of choosing the person to represent it for the top job. “NEC (the National Executive Committee) has to sit and decide. If you just come up and say you want to stand on your own you can regret. But if NEC chose me, I would pity this country.“I would get all the money from the Treasury and that would be the end of the economy. We shall be like Congo. But I know I can’t manage that position,” he said.The General said the job he would do best is to fight poverty. “I was denied what I would do best. Should I say it? If I say it will you tell him (President Museveni) to give it to me? You go and tell him that I want a good position which can enable me fight poverty because all the money I had has been finished in my fight against poverty,” he said.“My brother (Museveni) used to tell everybody that Salim Saleh can’t fight poverty alone. He would say only the Government could fight poverty. That’s why I want that job so that I can go where the money meant to fight poverty is kept and put it to use,” he said.“If you can collect a million signatures and I get the job, that will be the end of poverty,” he said.Saleh threatened to quit Parliament, saying he does not understand its methods of work. He is one of the 10 army representatives in Parliament.“Each time I go there, I get headache because I don’t understand their language. If they reach June before changing the way they talk, I will quit. For example they have spent four months on the POB (Political Organisations Bill) but they spent only one day on anti-poverty Bill,” he said. “Those saying I want to be president should wait for June when I will pack my bags and go to cultivate coffee,” he said.Saleh said he wanted to get saved when he returned from Europe after he had been announced dead but failed to identify the proper church to join.“I found the churches for born-again Christians were too many, about 1,000 and all of them were inviting me to join them. There is the Church of Lord, Lord James, Church of Lord and Lord whatever. The prophets were too many. “So I decided to go to Nakivubo and greet my people. I will become saved when the churches get united,” he said.He said he was happy that many people love him. “I thought my friends were only in the army. Now I know the majority of my friends are civilians. If I had died I wonder how many would have buried me,” he said.The rally was organised by the wife of Lt. Col. Drago Nyanzi and other Saleh fans. Saleh arrived at Nakivubo in a blue Range Rover in a convoy of seven cars. About 20 uniformed soldiers were part of the convoy.There was a heavy presence of the PPU.