Andrew Mwenda

By Andrew M. Mwenda How Rwanda is defying the established mechanisms of organizing politics in Africa and why it is succeeding Last week, we were at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for a two-day conference on Rwanda. It always amazes me how this small …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Another look at Africa’s patron-client relations and the peasant moral universe Sometime in 2003, I visited the late former Zambian president Fredrick Chiluba at his palatial home in Lusaka’s rich suburb of Kablong and we sat down over a meal of rice, chapatti and wild game. …

By Andrew M. Mwenda How the US president has swallowed his idealism and transformed from a critic of his Ugandan counterpart into an ally Barack Obama’s election as president of the United States in 2008 was a moment of great hope. It is difficult to recapture the emotional tone of …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Opening the black box of East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to expose the initial conditions in each region in 1960 The Nobel laureate in economics, Robert Lucas, once said that when you begin thinking about development, you cannot stop. I suffer this disease as well. One …

By Andrew M. Mwenda How Gen. Sejusa has, through a series of letters, proven to be much less than what I always expected of him I read with disappointment a letter allegedly written by Uganda’s former coordinator of intelligence services, Gen. David Sejusa aka Tinyefuza, in late August in which …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Why Obama’s proposed military strike against the government of Assad is likely to make a bad situation worse President Barack Obama’s decision on a military strike against Syria demonstrates the triumph of politics over policy, fear over reason and tactics over strategy. Obama had drawn a …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Development is more a result of the activities of many anonymous individuals than a product of a visionary leader Common sense should predict and human nature would dictate that every leader of a poor country would desire to go down in history as a great transformative …

By Andrew M. Mwenda How the Legislature has joined the Executive in a spree of anarchical grabbing of public resources in Uganda It is now coming to two years since parliament in Uganda set up a committee to investigate allegations that ministers Sam Kutesa (Foreign Affairs) and Hillary Onek (then …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Our intellectuals need to broaden the debate on our failures from individual presidents to our elite class generally I think I have lost my faith in the wickedness of African leaders. A significant amount of debate on the failure of Africa to develop as rapidly as …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Why Zimbabwe’s ageing president won an election he should have lost and lessons for the opposition in Uganda So at 89 years, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe won a seventh term of office to remain president of his troubled country. Having been in power for 33 years, Mugabe, …