By Elamu Denis Ejulu We are seeing and hearing more tales involving deportation of Africans on planes amid screams and resistance News from the Middle East concerning the predicament of over 700 black Africans, most of them of South Sudanese and Eritrean origin, facing the prospect of deportation from Israel …
Read More »EALA: How Zziwa beat Byamukama
By Agather Atuhaire NRM favourite for speaker loses to a “rebel” as parties assess damage, victories and future The National Resistance Movement (NRM) party was supposed to be the ultimate victor in the election of Uganda’s delegates to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA). Of the nine seats, it took …
Read More »Uganda’s possible Tahrir Square
By Andrew M. Mwenda Given Museveni’s long rule and potential for family succession, is Uganda now vulnerable to an `Arab Spring’ I argued in this column last week that Africa has almost similar structural conditions as the Middle East on the eve of the Arab Spring – sustained economic growth …
Read More »Makerere losing staff over low pay
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati Varsity left short of 1,200 lecturers Makerere University is daunted by vacant academic staff posts leaving its few lecturers overloaded and fatigued, a 2011 value for money audit report by Auditor General reveals. The university is supposed to have 2,491 academic staff in its eight colleges …
Read More »Africa’s political risk profile
By Andrew M. Mwenda How realistic is the risk of political upheaval in Africa and what can be done about it? Two weeks ago, I was in Nairobi, Kenya to attend a conference on Africa’s political risk profile. The moderator of the first session posed four questions for discussion: Is …
Read More »Opposition shoots self in foot, again
By Agather Atuhaire Mutual suspicion undoes the fragile unity of the Parliamentary opposition and hands victory to the NRM A conflict between opposition parties Forum for Democratic Change and Democratic Party has destroyed any hope of opposition unity and jeopardized equitable party representation in the East African Legislative Assembly. On …
Read More »A global new deal
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram Public investment and basic social protection can turn around economies by creating millions of jobs Recent political developments, including the defeat of incumbent governments in France and Greece, suggest that the public’s tolerance for economic policies that do not reduce unemployment has collapsed. Indeed, given the …
Read More »The Marketscope (Part 2)
By Dr. Robert Rutaagi Uganda’s competitiveness in the domestic, regional and global markets Niche’ and its adjunctive derivative ‘marketing’ is a terminology that is greatly abused. The word niche is of French origin, meaning “a small hole, in a large wall, usually used to hang a photograph or art craft”. …
Read More »Opinion polls; the bitter truth
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati Research World International (RWI) published its first ever political opinion poll on May 22 which has become controversial. Dr. Patrick Wakida, who is the chief researcher and RWI chief executive, spoke to The Independent’s Mubatsi Asinja Habati. What motivated you to do this political poll? It …
Read More »The politics of opinion polls
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati Hardly two months after an Afrobarometer opinion poll indicted President Yoweri Museveni’s management of Uganda and provoked the ire of First Lady Janet Museveni, another poll has arrived at a similar conclusion: Most Ugandans want the old man out. Near the top of the list of …
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