COLUMNISTS

By Andrew M. Mwenda The death of Maj. Gen. James Kazini reveals the major institutional weakness in Uganda. Kazini died like a petty thief allegedly bludgeoned to death by a ‘malaya.’ This is not an isolated incident. As President Yoweri Museveni said at the funeral, the best of NRA/UPDF commanders …

By Akena P’Ojok Why Uganda should not be short of electricity In part I, the author showed how the British built Owen Falls Power Station to serve their colonial interests, how they locked in an agreement for Uganda to supply cheap electricity to British settlers in Kenya, and how the …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Last week, I was in Lagos, Nigeria and witnessed the tragedy of African politics. Nigeria is home of anything between 140m to 160m people. It has some of the most educated, intelligent, innovative and hard working Africans. However, its politics promotes leaders who are venal, greedy …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Member of Parliament for Ndorwa East David Bahati wants homosexuals imprisoned for life or hanged. I am deeply conscious of the fact that the vast majority of Ugandans support him. But debate on homosexuality is being conducted largely out of ignorance and prejudice. For example, a …

By Akena P’Ojok Why Uganda should not be short of electricity It should be a blessing for a country to have natural energy resources such as petroleum, gas, coal, water with fast running rivers and falls. But this is not always the case; in fact the contrary may occur. This …

By Ariel Rubin While section 140 of the colonial-era Penal Code Act already criminalises “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, this new legislation will attempt to give teeth to that dictum Being gay in Uganda has never been easy, but a new draft bill tabled in Parliament on October …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Over the last 50 years, public debate in Africa has been fixated on democracy or the lack of it as the primary cause of economic failure. Wars and elections have been fought over it; rebellions launched or quashed in its defence and coups have been carried …

By Kalundi Serumaga Nigerian author Chinua Achebe tells us of a proverb questioning the judgement of a man who, while fighting a fire consuming his house, drops his bucket to chase the rats fleeing from the same flames. There are perhaps those who could defend such behaviour. Maybe the rats …

By Patrick Matsiko wa Mucoori The National Resistance Movement had no difficulty in supporting cultural revival. We had no difficulty because reviving the cultural institutions will address the following very important points’¦ It was of great significance that in the interlacustrine Bantu area, the kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole and …

By Andrew M. Mwenda On October 16, 2009, Oxford’s Prof. Paul Collier gave a talk at Serena Hotel in Kampala on the prospects of an oil windfall in Uganda. Unlike in most of his work, this time Collier did not focus on how the international community (read the West) can …