OPINION: Museveni’s ‘eyes on, hands-off approach’ has worked

By Ben Ssebuguzi

If you want to know how President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who is the National Chairman of NRM dearly loves his Office at Kyambogo(ONC), is the way he facilitates and funds it to enable it to carry out his functions of National interest in nature.

This office is highly beefed up with enough security personnel who are friendly to the people complimented with high-tech indoor and outdoor surveillance cameras that can stretch up and see to about 2 km. That is why it is not easy to steal a car or pickpocket someone in the radius of Nakawa market from his office. He is able to monitor who has been served in real-time.  

You will realize that the National Chairman’s office (ONC) was very evident during Hajjat Uzeiye Namyalo’s reign when she used her extraordinary leadership skills to undertake various projects like the Wealth empowerment project where thousands of youth groups in the country received start-up items including sawing machines, grinding machines, saloon equipment, agro-inputs among others to battle poverty, which has made more youths get more indeared to the President.

The candidness and transparency of Hajjat Uzeiye Namyalo have helped her win the trust of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to even give her more funds to recruit a critical mass of District coordinators across the country whose work is to monitor government anti-poverty programs like PDM and emyooga, roads, hospitals etc and submit reports to the National Chairman office to that effect.

That is why ONC is able to feed the President with the right information even before the conventional agencies like police, ISO, and RDC do so. This helps him to make timely decisions for the country. The President is able to achieve those milestones through an effective management tool of “Eyes on, Hands off”

With this approach, the National Chairman of NRM is able to use his highly complex skill of empathy trust, and experience of understanding people to run his affairs. This has encouraged an environment of transparency where the expectation is for people to be self-aware of when they need help and are comfortable asking questions that matter.

Consequently, ONC has managed to deliver extremely and exceptionally high-quality work at Kololo airstrip conferences where ONC hosts mammoth crowds to the fact that the President has never missed simply because he trusts his TEAM via mobilisation. 

Besides those aforementioned successes, the Eyes on, hands-off Museveni approach has re-engineered the spirit of creativity among staff at ONC under the good stewardship of Hajjat Namyalo where she has used well her craft to unite Ugandans under one accord as instructed by the President.

Besides sponsoring almost all Kabaka Mutebi and Mengo mass awareness Crusades like the Kabaka birthday run and Bika Football tournament, she has also brought different religious denominations to the table with the President to pray for our country to overcome challenges. 

A particular case in point is how she managed to raise over 700 heads of cattle that were donated to Moslems during Iddi Mubarak. As if that was not enough, Hajjat Uzeiye Namyalo helped the country to get a new and the First Moslem bank, Salaam Bank which is expected to elevate investment in our country through competitive lending without interest (Riba).

In the same vein, this Ramadan period, ONC has been a bee hive of activity as many Moslem faith believers have highly benefited from President Yoweri Museven’s generosity. Last week alone about 45,000 believers went away with an assortment of things in a box package weighing close to 50kg.

Inside the package, there was sugar, cooking oil, baking powder, milk, chocolate, rice, and spaghetti, among others. The latest batch of 15,000 Moslem university students also managed to come and take the same to help them during this fasting period.

In conclusion, the Eyes on and Hands off management approach by President Yoweri Museveni has been pragmatic and has mended good relationships and built brotherhood but most importantly helped to empower many youths across the country to engage in wealth creation. 

Ben Ssebuguzi is the Head of Research at Office of the National Chairman (ONC) – Kyambogo