Organising For Action (Ofa), a loose group of National Resistance Movement [NRM] party youths has joined a campaign to push for the removal of article 102b of the constitution that provides for the presidential age limit.

Ofa is the second group to come out openly to support the age limit removal to allow three-decade ruler Yoweri Museveni seek reelection when Uganda next goes to the polls in 2021.

Earlier in the week, a group led by David Mafabi, a Museveni advisor, publicly announced they had started a campaign to push for the removal of the age limit and for Museveni’s 2021 reelection bid.

Born in 1944, Museveni will be over 75 years and therefore ineligible to stand for president.

Now according to Ofa, “Actually the first ever law enforcing age of presidency was the ‘Lex Villia Annalis’. This was a roman law enacted in 1800 BC. This however only set the minimum age. As young people (majority population) we find the current limitations within article 102 of the constitution of Uganda as unjustified age discrimination.”

They also want the age limit lower below 35 years for president.

“In countries like the United States, occasionally people who are younger than the minimum age will run for an office in protest of the requirement, examples include RUSH HOLT in 1934, he was elected to senate at 29, but could not assume office until his birth day to make 30 years that was six months away,” the group argued in a statement Thursday.

“The British youth council in 2000, successfully campaigned to lower age of candidacy requirements in the United Kingdom. The age for candidacy was reduced from 21 to 18 in England, wales and Scotland. Most of the European countries have the minimum ages set at 18 and 21.”

Overall, they want no limit for elective positions.

“We should not impose age restrictions on who can stand. The idea behind democracy is that you let the voters decide. Democracy means if someone is too old for you, don’t vote them.

“Politics should be about efficiency and effectiveness not forgetting the power lies within the people. Back to the constitution of Uganda, where all citizens share equal rights, we should therefore not use the same constitution to deprive the certain group off their rights or suffocate them in one way or the other.”