Col. Emmy Katabazi Rallies Youth to Defend Uganda’s Economic Independence

Col Emmy Katabazi/ Courtsey Photo

KYANKWANZI– The Senior Presidential Advisor on Security and Intelligence, Col. Emmy Katabazi, has challenged a select group of young leaders undergoing ideological training at the National Leadership Institute (NALI), Kyankwanzi, to be vigilant against foreign interests bent on keeping Uganda underdeveloped and dependent.

Col. Katabazi, who previously served as the Director General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO), delivered a powerful lecture on national sovereignty, economic liberation, and the role of revolutionary leadership in Africa.

In his address, he revealed that the enemies of Uganda and Africa at large employ a calculated strategy: to promote and support weak, puppet leadership that can easily be manipulated to fail their own countries.

“The enemies of our country usually support weaker leaders to use that opportunity to fail the country for their benefit,” Col. Katabazi told the attentive learners.

He explained that this strategy serves a bigger economic agenda. According to him, external forces are comfortable when Uganda remains only a supplier of unprocessed raw materials, with no capacity to add value or industrialize.

“They will always want Uganda to only remain a source of their raw materials. Coffee, minerals etc. They want us to add no value to our raw materials. Not to grow,” he stressed, adding that this is the core of neo-colonialism.

Col. Katabazi said history across Africa proves his point. He took the learners through the painful history of African revolutionary leaders who were targeted precisely because they wanted to break this cycle of exploitation.

He gave the example of Patrice Emery Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At just 35, Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 because he insisted that Congo’s immense wealth in copper, cobalt and diamonds must serve the Congolese people, not Belgium. Since his death, Congo has never known true stability.

He also cited Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, the father of Pan-Africanism, who built the Akosombo Dam and championed a United States of Africa with one currency and a joint army. He was overthrown in a Western-backed coup in 1966 while on a peace mission.

In Burkina Faso, he said, Thomas Sankara proved that Africa could develop without aid. Within four years, Sankara vaccinated 2.5 million children, built schools, planted 10 million trees, empowered women, and famously told his people that “he who feeds you, controls you.” He was assassinated in 1987.

Col. Katabazi also mentioned Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who transformed Libya into Africa’s most prosperous nation with free education and healthcare, and was pushing for an African Central Bank and a Gold Dinar to trade African oil. After his killing in 2011, Libya collapsed into chaos.

“These leaders were not killed because they failed their people. They were killed because they refused to let Africa remain a source of cheap raw materials for others,” he noted.

He said this history is why the NRM government continues to invest in ideological schools like Kyankwanzi – to create a new breed of leaders who understand these dynamics.

“Part of the visit is to increase a number of revolutionaries in Uganda. Those who will be part of the solutions, not part of the problems,” Col. Katabazi said.

He defined a revolutionary not as someone with a gun, but as a disciplined, patriotic Ugandan who believes in value addition, rejects corruption, puts the nation above self, and has the courage to say no to unfair deals.

He urged the youth to embrace President Museveni’s message of socio-economic transformation through commercial agriculture, industry, services and ICT, and to protect Uganda’s path to middle-income status.

The learners, drawn from various youth structures, are undergoing a one-week course in political economy, patriotism, intelligence and national defense at Kyankwanzi.

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