KAMPALA —President Yoweri Museveni has said security services should quickly investigate and follow up individuals who peddle false news on social media.
“We need to solve this issue.. it is not security but an idiotic problem..social media. Social media has been saying Museveni is dead. When I went to Bombo people were looking…. Because they had been told by social media that Museveni is dead. Security service needs to solve that problem. They need to check and locate quickly, the one who tells such as story and waste peoples time. They should go for you, locate where you are and come for you. If you are in Europe, we denounce you. Say go to hell! he said.
President Museveni was the Chief Guest at the swearing in ceremony of the 15 ministers who missed out last month.
On the issue of Covid-19, President Museveni said this is a very dangerous but simple disease.
“Dangerous because it is new and our bodies are not used to it. That is why it causes problem in some people. But it is easy to avoid. The problem is not the virus, it is us! We are the ones carrying the virus, it does not carry itself,” he said.
The President said with discipline, we could have avoided the second wave completely but because of indiscipline, this pushed the number of deaths from 200 dead people from the beginning to the current almost 2000.
“That is why we had to launch another lockdown. From what I’m hearing, this is already slowing down the spread. In Cabinet, they told me that the lockdown is working.
Before, when they check 100 people for corona, 17 would be having the virus. But now because of the lockdown, when they check 100, only 8-10 people are positive. It has already worked. The logic is, freeze where you are! Do not move except for categories we allowed including cargo, security, medical etc,” he said.
Mr. Museveni said they are working very hard to import vaccines.
“Vaccines are not in short supply but are shared badly. Some people want to solve their problems first before they look at ours. It’s not Christian, but now we know that people who say they are Christians are not… and it’s a good lesson. That’s why we are working very had to develop our own vaccines. We shall either bring investors to produce vaccines here or develop our own vaccines. Some of our scientists are working on therapeutics. They have used some indigenous knowledge, which is abundant to get items that seem to be curing some of these people. But we shall confirm that and announce formally and funding these people,” he said.
He said the country can exploit the pathogenic economy to get more money.
“You can make money dealing with germs than growing coffee, bananas, or cows. People who specialize in germs and health etc get a lot of money, much more than coffee and cattle. We are learning now and are going to make money from germs,” he said.
The President said that it was unfortunate they did not exploit the ebola pandemic to get a vaccine.
“I was very angry with these people. We were the ones who started with ebola here in the world. Ebola is ours. How is it that other people made a vaccine for ebola when we are just sitting here! We are really waking up and fortunately we have educated a lot of our young people. They really, if helped, there is nothing they can not do. We shall defeat the corona,” he said.
He appealed to Ugandans to stop the arguments and be advised to follow the science.
“Be patient. Don’t rush around and don’t panic. This is not like AIDs which is not easy to cure. With corona, even the body can defeat it without medicine ..and with medicines many can be cured and it can be avoid,” he said.
