By Our reporter

KAMPALA – President Yoweri Museveni has lashed out at the Allied Democratic Force (ADF) as confused ignorant people who are fighting unjust war.

 “Fellow Ugandans and, especially, the Bazzukulu. Greetings. Congratulations on a largely peaceful and happy Christmas. Nevertheless, I always marvel at how ignorance can be very dangerous. Take the case of ADF. These are people who delude themselves, working with confused people from other parts of the World that they want to turn Uganda into a country ruled under Islamic Law (Sharia)!!,” he tweeted January 1^st 2024.

Adding, “Thereby, making fools of themselves but also causing a lot of unnecessary deaths and damage.”

Museveni further explained, “In Ntungamo, we had a few Muslims who lived peacefully with the other Ugandans. These were people like Bijega, Rutanywa-maizi, Kindimbo, Amisi Muganzi (muruka chief), Musa Kirwa (road foreman), Kapasi,etc. Some were our family friends. When the NRM came to power in 1986, Mzee Amisi Muganzi (who was, then, living in Kyazanga), cycled, on his bicycle, all the way to Rwakyitura to link up with his old friend, Mzee Amosi Kaguta, who, then, brought him to me, to congratulate us on our struggles.”

Adding, “In Ntungamo, a few cows were kusharwa (cut the throat the Muslim way) but the majority were Kushogoitwa (puncturing the jugular vein the traditional way). Nobody minded what the other did. They lived in harmony. The ADF to think that they can disrupt this harmony and impose sharia law on Uganda, is the height of disorientation.”

President Museveni said, “Only parasites can think like that; moreover, parasites who are very shallow. Our strong heritage has been here for the last 4.5 million years. Yes, we can benefit from elements of the new religions (Christianity and Islam), but to think that you can turn us into Europeans or Arabs, is the height of lack of seriousness.”

He further explains, “Therefore, the founders of ADF, supported by Mobutu (former President DR Congo) and Bashir, (former President of Egypt) were deceiving themselves to imagine that Uganda can be run as a sharia state. Moreover, they are parasites divorced from the Ntungamo society of wealth creators-cattle-keepers, crop growers, artisans and service providers. Our Muslems were mainly in services-shops, butcheries, hotels, etc.”

ADF, an armed group based in the eastern DRC that has pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS) is reported to have killed several people in Dr Congo and Uganda.

The ADF was formed in Uganda in the 1990s before moving over the border and has been blamed for thousands of killings in the last decade across both countries.

In June, ADF fighters killed 42 people, including 37 students, at a high school in western Uganda near the DRC border in what was the country’s deadliest attack in more than a decade. In November, the Ugandan army said it captured the head of an ADF unit known simply as “Njovu” and killed six of his men in a raid.