President Museveni advises Ugandans to buy cassava

President Yoweri Museveni has advised Ugandans who cannot afford to buy bread to instead, opt for cassava.

The president, who was presiding over the International Labour Day celebrations at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds; grabbed the opportunity to respond to public cries  about high cost prices of essential commodities.

“Africans really confuse themselves. If you’re complaining that there’s no bread or wheat, please eat mwogo. I don’t eat bread myself,” said Museveni in his off-the-cuff speech at the Labour Day celebrations held in Kampala.

Additionally, the Head of State said the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities in Uganda were a result of natural calamities like Covid-19 and exacerbated by man-made external factors like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which had disrupted the global supply chain and created a scarcity of products.

This is the second time President Museveni has attempted to address the increase in food prices in what analysts say is a controversial manner.

In 2021, the President who’s ruled Uganda for three and a half decades, appeared on camera with a measuring scale, knife and attempted to show Ugandans how much they should feed on per meal to avoid wastage.

Historians have likened President Museveni to Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution.

At some point around 1789, when being told that her French subjects had no bread, Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI) supposedly sniffed, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.” With that callous remark, the queen became a hated symbol of the decadent monarchy and fueled the revolution that would cause her to (literally) lose her head several years later.

But did Marie-Antoinette really say those infuriating words? Not according to historians. These are the same historians querying the president’s statement about bread and cassava. This has become a problem.