In a statement released through their social media platforms, NRM Youth league members and other youth who participated in the mobilization for NRM Party candidates and President Yoweri Museveni during the 2021 General Elections have decided to form a movement away from the party known as the “Vanguard Movement”
They pointed out their dissatisfaction with the government in terms of cracking down the opposition, stepping on the media, unbalanced development in the country, lack of tolerance and suppressing human rights among others like unfulfilled pledges for over 30years.
Mr. Stephen Odokorach, a renowned NRM mobilizer and one of the brains behind the “vanguard movement” said through his long writing that “Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has turned from a liberator into a dictator.” He continues to allude the fact that the NRM government whom they have served for long has turned into a first family business, “more often, the police and the army are serving the interest of the first family but take their time showing up in the case of an emergency,” he said.
A number of people within the community have questioned the motive behind this movement. Others look at it as attention seeking by the vulnerable NRM mobilizers meanwhile others look at them as people who were blind and now their eyes have opened.
Hon. Robinson Okello, a member of the NRM party and former flag bearer for councilor iv Laroo-Pece division, Gulu city said, “the youth forming the vanguard movement are just hungry and self-seeking people who do not have the party at heart.”
However, according to Okello Peter Lucoromoi, a mobilizer of the NRM party and former flagbearer for Bardege-Layibi division, the vanguard movement are the youth who love the NRM party but have lost trust of its leadership and hate the direction it is taking. To them, Museveni is no longer the legitimate leader to hold Uganda’s vision 2040 and that is why they are mobilizing young people to join their movement and position themselves for a transition.
Efforts to get reactions from the leadership of the NRM party in Gulu city is still on hold as no official communication from them has been made.
Stay close to Faraja television as we track the progress of this movement.
By Daniel Olara
