President Yoweri Museveni has said Uganda will not cower to the World Bank, which withheld financial aid previously promised to the African nation after learning of its anti-gay laws.

Last week, the World Bank halted all forms of aid to Uganda, saying the nation’s intolerable anti-homosexuality laws did not reflect the values of the apex bank.

But Mr Museveni, on Thursday, responded by describing the World Bank officials as “shallow and insufferable imperialist actors who do not know where to stop” in a post on Twitter, now called X.

Last May, Mr Museveni signed an anti-gay law that hands 20 years prison sentence to violators and a death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality”, a move that drew condemnation from Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden and informed the World Bank’s decision to suspend financial aid to Uganda.

The Ugandan president said the sanctions were in vain as his country was unmoved and would not be intimidated into reversing the anti-homosexual laws. He noted that the withdrawal of aid would not, however, make Ugandans suddenly become “anti-Western”.

“The provocations by the World Bank and the thoughtless homo-sexual lobby should not provoke us into being, automatically, anti-Western,” the Ugandan president said.

Mr Museveni implied that the aid the World Bank has provided to African nations failed to improve the continent’s economy, noting there were still growing crises of insecurity and instability.

“On the contrary, those loans and aid packages can be a source of distortion and stunted growth as you can see across Africa,” Mr Museveni posted on X. “If foreign aid and loans are a source of social-economic transformation, why the present growing crisis of even security and stability in Africa?”

“Some of these imperialist actors are insufferable. You have to work hard to restrain yourself from exploding with anger,” the president said.