COLUMNISTS

By Andrew M. Mwenda The incentive structure created by NATO’s commitment to the rebels will breed a movement of opportunists, not democrats. Recently, NATO airstrikes killed the son of Libyan leader Maummar Al Gaddafi and his three children. Officially, NATO’s role in the ongoing conflict in Libya is to protect …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Bin Laden argued that to end local tyranny, Muslims should fight American first; Cairo and Tunis proved him wrong On Monday, I walked into the studios of Capital FM for my morning radio show only to see breaking news on television that Osama Bin Laden had …

By Moses Asasira Government is wrong for refusing to address the economic crisis but so is the opposition for exploiting the situation for political ends The chaos and uncertainty sparked opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s Walk to Work and fanned by government is hurting the economy. Government through various officials is …

By Mubatsi Asinja Habati I still can’t believe this is the same police force I almost joined a year ago! Thank God the recruitment wasn’t fair after all,” said Rose Amdoi after watching a video clip of a lean-looking man vandalising opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Kizza Besigye’s luxury …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Local councils have undermined the effectiveness of public administration without fostering the expected accountability dividend. In 2000, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi gave me a copy of his PhD thesis written at the London School of Economics titled “Decentralisation and Development Administration in Uganda.” It is a sobering account …

By Mwambustya Ndebesa The 1999 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, Amartya Sen asserts that there has never been food shortage in a functioning democracy. There is an argument currently that demonstrations cannot bring rain.  It’s an argument to discount those who are demonstrating because of high food prices.  …

By Prof. Augustus Nuwagaba Obama has intervened in the US financial crisis. Is our government saying Uganda is more economically liberal than America? The protests over rising commodity prices in Uganda have posed a huge test to the government on how sensitive it is to the needs of the people. …

By Bob A. Kasango Let us all know that injustice anywhere is ultimately injustice everywhere In the January 31, 2009 issue of Newsweek magazine, Fareed Zakaria wrote about how in May 2006, a unit of American soldiers in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan valley were engulfed in a ferocious fire fight with the …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Given Libya’s tribal cleavages, the contours of conflict will deepen ethnic tensions and threaten the institutional integrity of the state Now, the complexity of the political problems of Libya is becoming apparent. There is a lot of back and forth shift in fortunes between rebels and …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Uganda is now caught up in the contradiction of extreme wealth alongside excessive poverty and extreme luxury alongside mass deprivation After a long period without any public issue around which to galvanise popular discontent in their favour, the opposition in Uganda has finally found one in …