Democratic Party (DP) president, Norbert Mao, is one of the key opposition leaders who attended the Inter-Party Organization for Dialogue (IPOD) presided over by President Yoweri Museveni, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) chairman today at the Kololo Independence grounds.

Mao described the IPOD summit as a rare opportunity to find solutions to problems affecting Uganda.

“The spirit required from IPOD members is the spirit to put Uganda first. Violence should be condemned. We should use persuasion rather than coercion. We should look for common ground. We don’t want a situation where all interests are mutually exclusive,” Mao said.

“Governments can come and go but the state needs to be protected. In some countries like Italy, governments are always falling but the state never collapses. IPOD is not about protecting any government. It is about the State. Uganda is the only country we have. We may have a plan B but we don’t have a country B,” the DP president added.

Relatively, Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) president, Jimmy Akena, while at the same function, also urged all Ugandans not to ignore the need to come together for dialogue in case of any differences.

“I urge all my colleagues not to lose sight of the greatest prize of all this. The greatest prize is how we shall leave Uganda. We need to strive towards raising the standards of living for every citizen. Ultimately as UPC, we would like to leave Uganda in a better place. We shall do everything in our power to achieve this. I am all in for dialogue and I hope all our colleagues will join us in this venture,” Akena said.

“Despite some of our colleagues not being present, we have been able to capture concerns and raise all our concerns at this summit. We thank the President for promising to look into the issues we raised,” he added.

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary General (SG), Justine Kasule Lumumba, said the IPOD under President Museveni’s chairmanship, has agreed to adopt the principle of a multi-stakeholder dialogue on national issues.

“The principle adopted today is aimed at answering political questions lingering among Ugandan as the elders’ forum and other platforms handle the sematic areas as agreed before,” Lumumba said.

President Museveni, while delivering his address after the summit, stated that the NRM government had long spotted the political problems of the country and devised solutions for them.

“Politics is like medicine where you have a doctor who diagnoses the sickness of the patient by looking at the symptoms and carrying out tests. Once the doctor has diagnosed the sickness, he prescribes treatment,” Museveni said.

He added; “Healthy politics is like that. When we were still students, we started a new force. In it, our social-economic diagnosis was eventually captured in the four principles of the NRM. These are patriotism, Pan-Africanism, social-economic development, and democracy. We are always ready to explain and also listen to the explanation of others. Unfortunately, some people have abandoned dialogue.”

IPOD was formed in 2010 by the political parties represented in parliament. It’s mandated to consolidate multi-party democracy through dialogue.

However, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), JEEMA and other political parties on the country boycotted it, saying they were not given ample time to discuss the agenda of the summit.

By Baron Kironde