Kampala — Ugandan Lira Municipality MP, Cecilia Ogwal caused quite a stir in Parliament yesterday when she urged the visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki to teach his Ugandan counterpart how to hand over power peacefully.

Ms Ogwal told President Mbeki that he should not stop at teaching President Yoweri Museveni South African dialects but also endeavour to lecture him on how to hand over power.

"You should teach him how to nurture the culture of peaceful handover of power. Former President Nelson Mandela was in jail for a long time but when he became President, he served for a short time. This is the culture that we want to inculcate in all of us. I am not targeting anybody, even MPs should transfer power to others," Ms Ogwal said attracting foot stamping and laughter from MPs as Mr Museveni looked at her with a forced a smile.

Mr Museveni had led his visitor to Parliament where MPs passed a resolution commending Mr Mbeki for his contributions to his nation and the African continent.

In his opening remarks, Mr Mbeki said he was supposed to leave Uganda yesterday [Tuesday] but he had been persuaded to stay for one more day to teach President Museveni how to pronounce words in South African dialects.

President Museveni had earlier said that most African languages had several related words specifically mentioning South Africa's Khoisan in relation to Uganda's Bantu languages.

President Museveni who has been in power since 1986 was expected to retire next year after the expiry of the two Constitutional terms but he masterminded a Constitution amendment process to allow him to contest for the same office in 2006 and beyond.

Ms Ogwal said the colonial regime in South Africa and several African leaders had used laws to entrench dictatorship.

She said Ugandan politicians needed to understand the paradigm of peaceful handover of power other than looking at their selfish interests.

Mr Museveni has on several occasions insisted that he could not hand over power because there was lack of visionary leaders in the country.

She said that the 850 million Africans had engaged in self-destruction instead of constituting a market that would lead to development.

She said if this is achieved, Africans would cease to be beggars and become donors.

Meanwhile, 18 presidential candidates out of the 35 who picked nomination papers have been booked for nomination today at Kampala's Mandela National Stadium.

Detained Col Dr Kizza Besigye, the Presidential candidate for the Forum for Democratic Change has been booked for 11am today.

Although Dr Besigye had wished to attend his nomination in person, he will be represented by FDC party officials after the High Court declined to orders his release from Luzira Prison.

Other candidates booked for nomination include; the Democratic Party's John Ssebaana Kizito (3 pm), JEEMA's Muhammad K Mayanja (4 pm), Mr Tumusiime Rwamafa Emmanuel (10 am), for Forum for Integrity in Leadership.

Ms Miria Obote, the presidential candidate for Uganda peoples' Congress is booked for 2 pm together with the candidate for Uganda Economic Party.

President Museveni is booked for Thursday at 2 pm.

Others on the Thursday nomination ticket include; Al Haji Sulaiman Masaba of Uganda People's Party, Independent candidates, Mr Bwanika Abed and Mr Ntege Sebaggala Nasser, and National Youth Development Association's Mr Kakama Moses Twale.

According to the Electoral Commission, each nominee has been allotted one hour and the nomination exercise will run from 10 am to 4 pm.

However, there are more candidates than the hours allotted and according to EC, this is problematic. "But we have to serve the people," Mr Okello Jabweli, the commission's public relations officer told Daily Monitor at his office yesterday.