Opposition figures in the country have expressed reservations on holding independence celebrations noting that this is just an NRM ritual and a waste of time.
Uganda is today celebrating 56 years of Independence and the national celebrations are being held in Kyotera district.
However, the Acting Secretary General for opposition party, DP, Gerald Siranda told SoftPower News that apart from comemorating the day, Ugandans are still not independent, but living under torture by their own government.
“Celebating Independence is simply an NRM ritual of showing off their might but once you look, all that the white man left for us has been sold off to enrich a few people in the regime,” Siranda said.
“This ritual of celebrating independence and indeed you have nothing to show that you are independent to me it is just a mockery to Ugandans. This should be a day where Ugandans would evaluate where we are and what we are up to but if you still have 5 children lying on one bed in hospitals, 9 children dying daily due to in infant mortality, it is so shameful,” Siranda said.
Siranda said that after 56 years of Independence, Ugandans should no longer be talking of a regime that tortures its citizens or even high rates of poverty and hunger.
Whereas he acknowledged the importance in the idea of the country attaining self governance back then, he was quick to add that “when you look at what the whites left for us and what we have now, you would wish that we would have stayed under the colonial rule”.
He added that Uganda only changed the white man but the country is still under colonialism citing the continued reliance on foreign loans.
On his part, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) National Chairman, Wasswa Birigwa noted that he wishes that the country had remained under the colonial masters.
“If the white man comes back today, he will be laughing at us. I sometime think we would be better if we remained under his rule looking at the way we are killing and torturing each other,” Birigwa said.
He added, “They were more or less torturing us psychologically but now you can see the regime torturing its own people as if they are beating cows.”
“Sometime I wish they [colonial masters] could come back and help solve our problems because it seems we have failed, we are not even willing to sit and listen to each other.”
