Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has described Tanzania's founding fathers Dr Julius Nyerere and Sheikh Abeid Karume as visionary East African leaders and wise thinkers who gave up their country's sovereignty to unite the people for a common objective.

"These leaders should be saluted for the wise decision of uniting the Tanganyika Mainland and Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania," President Museveni told the Inter-Parliamentary Relations Seminar in Entebbe at the weekend.

This brave and commendable example should be followed suit by the East African Community Partner States, he added.

Dr Nyerere, who retired as President in 1985, died in London on 14 October 1999, aged 77, of leukemia. Sheikh Karume (67) was assassinated in April 1972 in Zanzibar Town.

President Museveni was addressing at the two-day seminar run under the theme: "Promoting a people-centred and market driven East Africa".

"With a population of 140 million, [East Africa] offers a huge market that can easily attract investors who can in turn build factories in the region,"Mr Museveni commented on the theme according to Uganda's Monitor Newspaper.

He added: "Sectarianism based on tribal and religious grounds interferes with the interest of both producers and entrepreneurs".

He argued that unification of East Africa was "a necessity as the people of the region were already linked through culture and dialects."