President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday celebrated 70 years of baptism at St Luke Church of Uganda, Kinoni Archdeaconry in Rwampara, Mbarara District where he ‘blessed’ four church projects with a handshake.

At Kinoni, Museveni was taken through records of Christians baptised at the church.

Museveni praised the church for keeping records, which even hospital of birth did not have.

“I was born at Mbarara Hospital when it was still [at current] municipal council offices; it had not been shifted to where it is now [at Mbarara University of Science and Technology]. But when I went back to look for my birth certificate, I couldn’t find it there.”

Earlier the baptism records, including the date of baptism, had been interpreted by social media as being a substitute for the ‘unclear’ Museveni age.

Museveni, Uganda’s three-decade president, will be over the upper age limit provided for in article 102b of the constitution that bars all those above the age of 75 from contesting for president.

What made worse the ‘misinterpretation’ is the fact that Museveni donated cash to the church and its other projects.

Museveni gave a cheque worth Shs 100m to the diocese as contribution to Ankole Diocese Millennium Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisation; a cheque of Shs 200m to Mothers’ Union of Ankole Diocese; a Shs 10m cash gift to St Luke Church of Uganda, Kinoni Archdeaconry; and also pledged Shs 50m towards completion of the church building that is under reconstruction.

In fact, the event was both a fundraiser and a baptism anniversary but the latter took more airtime and space in the press because of the heated debate on the lifting of the age limit ‘plot’ that Museveni has dismissed as a wastage of time.