Museveni shares insights on restoring lasting peace in Africa

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President Yoweri Museveni has offered advice on the restoration of lasting peace in Africa, revealing that many countries can learn a lot from Uganda's fractious past for answers to their current predicaments.

The president said like many that have failed to have stable governments, including Sudan, Uganda struggled with challenges of identity politics. However, he said this was discouraged through a system of ideological reorientation of the country.

According to Museveni, Uganda had become a failed state with the collapse of all the pillars of the state: the army, police, civil service, etc. He added in addition, there was a collapse of the small money economy and collapse of peace since 1966, which caused the economy to suffer.

“Uganda is more democratic than many of the opinionated countries of the world because we have broader representation for the youth, women, and people with disability, workers, soldiers and the usual members of parliament found in the other countries,” he said.

He said it was the ideological reorientation, helped by four principles of patriotism, pan-Africanism, social-economic transformation and democracy that enabled the country to be viable.

He said he was “forced to advise our brothers, including General Bashir of Sudan, regarding the poison of the politics of identity of Shariah law and Arabism that they were promoting in that afro-Arab country of many cultures and religions." However, he failed to heed the advice.

He made the revelation on Friday while chairing the Extraordinary Summit of Troop-Contributing Countries (TCCs) to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) at State House, Entebbe.

The event came following a three-day extraordinary meeting of troop-contributing countries that commenced on Tuesday in Kampala. Participants included delegations from Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, as well as development partners, including the European Union and the United Kingdom.

The meeting comes against the backdrop of the expiry of the mandate of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) ending on 31 December 2024, which gave way to the AU-led AUSSSOM.

Speaking during the event, Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud thanked AUSSOM and its partners for backing his country in the fight against terrorism.

He said that although a lot of success has been made, a lot needs to be done in eradicating Al Shabaab from Somalia and from the religion.

He urged AUSSOM and partners to continue supporting his country, noting that this would not only help preserve and restore peace in his country but also discourage acts such as piracy that have a far-reaching impact on global trade.