From Museveni’s NRA to Descendants Resistance Army (DRA): Can Uganda’s rich children fight their parents’ & relatives’ Corruption?

President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni recently said he would use rich young people (children) from the Descendants Resistance Army (DRA), not members of the NRA old guard, to fight corruption.

In his 2021 State of the Nation Address, Museveni suggested the children in the middle class weren’t corrupt.

He added that the NRM had trained a number of these middle class children who would join the Descendants Resistance Army – DRA to fight corruption.

That these DRA members (children whose parents were NRA fighters) were already rich and wouldn’t be pushed into corruption to come out of poverty like the wretched would.

“What the corrupt fraternity did not factor in their kibaro of corruption and criminality, was the large number of the young people the NRM has trained over the years, many of them coming from the middleclass, where they do not have the pressure of home poverty,” noted Museveni.

“I have been discussing with my children, who are now senior adults, the timeliness of creating the DRA (the Descendants’ Resistance Army I) to take forward the work of the original NRA of their parents.”

The 76-year-old president further revealed that some of these Descendants Resistance Army members were motivated by passion, and not in search of jobs.

“This fraternity, recently recommended to me one of their group. When I talked to her about a certain job, her answer was: “No, Mzee, that is not my ‘pession,’ as they speak in their exotic accent,” naratted the president.

“These are people who work for passion, not money.”

He listed some of the DRA as Irene Kaggwa of UCC, and some other people who lifted the lid on the rot and corruption at Uganda Airlines.

“Against resistance, I put one of them, Ms. Irene Kaggwa, to manage Uganda Communication Commission (UCC). She is doing a commendable and clean job from the little I hear of,” he noted.

“The young passionists are liberating the Uganda Airlines. It is easy for the NRM to defeat corruption.”

But analysts such as former ISO spy Charles Rwomushana say it will be difficult for the DRA members to stop the corruption since their parents have benefited from the same and can’t cut the deep state system’s hand that feeds them.

“You are so lucky [because] their Deep State parents stole from you and their children don’t know poverty,” he said.

“They will take the best jobs to stop stealing so that you don’t steal from your selves. This is the Deep State Doctrine of Corruption immunisation.”

Museveni: Corruption starts from Ministry of Finance