Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s recent preference for youths and use of unofficial structures in the running of the ruling National Resistance Movements, NRM, affairs has unsettled many high-ranking ruling party officials, local media, OBSERVER states.

Over the last two months, the president and NRM national chairman has sidestepped the party secretary general Justine Kasule Lumumba, who heads the secretariat, preferring to work with a team of youthful mobilisers under his political assistant Eva Doka Babalanda.

The Babalanda team has already authored a damning report and handed it to the president. The report suggests the party has been infiltrated and needs an aggressive purge of its ranks of opposition supporters.

The report also nudged the president to sanction a new drive to recruit genuine party members. The idea, corroborated by a private investigation, insider sources said, was bought by the president.

“We are recruiting three youths per village. If there are over 60,000 villages in the country that comes to about 200,000 youths,” an MP who took part in the recruitment of the cadres told The Observer.

Babalanda confirmed on Tuesday that the recruitment drive was on and has covered nearly 90 per cent of all villages in the country. After the recruitment drive, the three youths per village will be trained and sent back to their respective villages to form youth groups.

The target is to have at least three youth groups each composed of about 45 members who will then get development funds. This, according to the source, explains why the Youth Livelihood Funds were moved from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to State House whose budget allocations were also increased.

“Truth is the 2021 election is going to be about youths; the generational phenomenon [by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi] Bobi Wine has changed the game plan and I can assure you, Museveni’s focus is on the youth; for now, there is nothing he wants the older politicians for,” the source said.