President Yoweri Museveni who is also the Presidential candidate for NRM has said that we must create household income to eradicate poverty amidst development.

“If there is peace and Development amidst poverty, there is need to create household income. One of the means to do so is through modern farming.
This is because traditional agriculture will not solve the poverty issue,” he said.

He reiterated that the modern agricultural activities must be done through proper alculations. He expressed his concern that many people were still living in poverty because of cultivating tobacco. He observed that tobacco could only be lucrative when it is grown on a large scale.

Museveni was yesterday speaking at a rally he held at Buzu Foundation Primary School in Madi Okollo County, Arua District where he warmly received 45 FDC members who crossed to the NRM party. Some of the FDC members who crossed were happy that the President had fulfilled his most of his pledges in the region.
“Today I declare that I am for NRM because, I have seen its good governance through provision of security in our areas, tarmacked roads, free education for our children and local programs like Village Healthy Team which provides medicine like Coatem for malaria control and IMV (Ivametric) for Tsetse fly control in Alidimu Village, Offaka sub county,” said
Adamam Fredrick, FDC resident of Rhino Camp aged 56 years old.
He also said he is ready with the other 45 FDC members who converted to NRM to mobilize other opposition members to vote for President Museveni who has brought peace and development in the country so that they are able to achieve more. “We don’t want to lose him.”
A staunch NRM supporter Edward Abram, 62, expressed his appreciation towards the NRM government for the free education programme and request for more schools and free education for nursery schools in the county.
President Museveni urged the people to grow coffee, citrus fruits, rear dairy cows, poultry for eggs and pigs, activities that can get the farmers more income on small pieces of land than growing tobacco. He said the big and small factories play a big role in wealth creation and advised them to set up maize mills, rice hullers and honey extractors.

President Museveni observed that the West Nile Region has got a population of about 3 million people and attributed the population growth to a successful national immunization program.

On graduate youth with no jobs, Museveni assured Ugandans that the NRM Government would retool them in technical skills of their choice at its cost and enable them to get jobs. He suggested that they train in fields such as metal works, wood works, ceramics and ICT.

He assured the people that the NRM government was doing everything possible to develop Uganda through prioritization and that the Operation Wealth Creation and Microfinance are to be provided with more funds to boost income generation. He said that the Government plans to provide more funds to the Youth Livelihood and Women’s Funds.
He was happy to note that Arua District has got a total of 293 Primary Schools with a population of 241,000 pupils. He said that the District has got 33 secondary Schools, noting that in 1961 the West Nile region had only Nyapea Secondary School.

By the Joshua Mutale