The ruling National Resistance Movement secretariat yesterday relaunched cadre training lectures dubbed ‘The NRM Ideological Clinics’ for its staff and party cadres to equip them with information among the ruling party. The lectures were first launched in September 2021.
The relaunch was presided over by party Secretary General, Rt. Hon. Richard Todwong, in the afternoon at the NRM Headquarters at Plot 10, Kyadondo Road in Kampala.
Rt.Hon. Todwong said the purpose of the lectures is to cause interaction between NRM young supporters and Party Historicals who have lived to witness NRM’s historical context, transformation, and evolution from the 1960s to date.
Todwong said the rationale of the lecturers is to help party supporters and cadres trace NRM’s long journey and how it has evolved for the last 45 years.
“We got a little engaged in the many by-elections we were having, and we did not have time to organise the clinics. And now that the by-elections are over, we thought we should reintroduce this programme to train our cadres,” Mr. Todwong said as he addressed the participants.
The lectures, which will be once a month, will be both physical and virtual via Zoom and YouTube for the convenience of some members who may be far away.
The Presidential Advisor at the NRA Archives, Mr. Hippo Twebaze, who was the guest speaker on the topic “The 90-Day Plan to Attack Kabamba,” moderated by former Bush War Liberator Maj. (Rtd) Awich Pollar, said that although freedom fighters were intellectuals, they collaborated so well with the locals who fed them credible information.
Teaching Kiswahili
SG Todwong said the ideological lectures will be conducted alongside Kiswahili lectures and the art of public speaking because “we know many leaders have an interest in leading the people, but communication is the problem. We are helping to learn how to speak to people with confidence and with much knowledge.”
“We are also teaching Kiswahili. We were already having a problem because all East African countries speak Kiswahili except Uganda, which was lagging behind. There are some Ugandans who have lost EAC community jobs when they go for interviews due to difficulty in Kiswahili proficiency,” Todwong revealed.
The Secretary General also revealed that the secretariat is also preparing to launch a digital library to enable online research by NRM cadres.
“Instead of carrying books, we shall be uploading the resources online to allow our members to research wherever they are on politics, the economy, and other issues,” Mr. Todwong said.