President Museveni used to describe their fathers as ‘swine’ and ‘cockroaches', but now he is reaching out to his predecessors’ sons to secure support in their home regions. PHOTOS | FILE
Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer, is a common English saying that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni seems to have taken literally. His decision to reach out to the offspring of his predecessors is being viewed in Kampala with great interest. What is his strategy? With what intentions are the offspring of former presidents responding to the embrace, if at all?
Museveni was in the habit of taking a swipe at his predecessors, especially former dictator Idi Amin and Milton Obote, whom he described as swine for misrule and crimes committed during their regimes. Also in this mix was the Gen Tito Okello Lutwa-led military junta, which lasted six months from July 1985 to January 1986, when Museveni took power.
