Politically charged students at Makerere University have been among the earliest causalities of the contentious president age limit debate as Police fired bullets on Sunday to disperse a gathering.
According to eyewitness reports, chaos broke out at University’s Mitchell Hall following sharp disagreements between rival factions during a debate on “The youth and Constitutional Affairs.”
The dialogue was organised by Makerere Think Tank.
Police shot in the air to save a group of youth leaders of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and other youth leaders from their rivals who had stormed the debate venue and demanded the departure of the speakers on grounds that the issue of age limit is not for debate lifting the presidential age limit from the 1995 Constitution.
Cabinet in the mix
A cabinet sitting on Friday endorsed a move by the ruling party, NRM parliamentary caucus to open up debate.
NRM MPs on Tuesday set off the much-anticipated move to have the presidential term limit lifted in order to have President Yoweri Museveni seek for another elective term in office after clocking 75 years.
Museveni would technically not qualify to run in the next presidential elections if article 102(b) is not amended to lift the age limitation for one to contest for presidency.
Article 102 (b) of the Constitution caps the presidential age at between 35 and 75 years. At least 271 members of the NRM caucus have appended their signatures to a document supporting a proposal to remove the age limit cap.
