THE LAST WORD

As Sierra Leone’s president seeks to amend the constitution and extend his presidency, it is time for Africa to pause and reflect By Andrew M. Mwenda The president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, wants to amend the constitution and remove term limits on the presidency. Koroma is not the …

How the opposition leader has blundered on the chance to promote his political project – if he has any By Andrew M. Mwenda Media reports have recently indicated there are attempts to organise talks between the government and the opposition. For such talks to be meaningful, they have to involve …

Why very few poor countries will escape poverty by taking gigantic leaps into the service industry  By Andrew M. Mwenda Two weeks ago, I had a disagreement with the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda. Kim had argued that increasing automation and …

Why this communist state, with per capita income like ours, manufactures nuclear weapons and satellites while we can’t By Andrew M. Mwenda Last week the U.S. announced its intelligence showed North Korea was planning to test another nuclear weapon. If it does, it will be the sixth nuclear test by …

How, barring a major surprise, the current power structure in Uganda makes lifting presidential age limit inevitable By Andrew M. Mwenda Those debating the succession issue in Uganda should refer to Rome in 44BC. Rome had been a republic since 509BC when the patricians rose in revolt and deposed King …

Why our intellectual elites need to begin an entirely new conversation about our nations By Andrew M. Mwenda African intellectual elites exhibit a conceptual contradiction. When economic performance is poor they argue that the major source of the problem is bad leadership. And when they talk of leadership, our intellectual …

By Andrew M. Mwenda How the new US president is bursting the Washington bubble and annoying the nation’s hypocrites For many decades, American journalists have deluded themselves into the belief that they are unelected representatives of the people. They are convinced that their profession places them above politics as impartial, …

  THE LAST WORD: By Andrew M. Mwenda How our overblown expectations of what oil is going to do for our country are likely to cause trouble I had always thought about the “oil curse” in terms of the “Dutch Disease” and the adverse incentives it creates that foster corruption …

  THE LAST WORD: By Andrew M. Mwenda  How politics, not the drought, explains the current famine our country is experiencing According a report by the government of Uganda last week nearly 11 million people in this country do not have enough food to eat. I have concerns with the …

THE LAST WORD: By Andrew M. Mwenda How economic success has tended to create more political trouble for Museveni than comfort Very many Ugandans are angry, very angry. They feel the country has lost direction. They argue that our politics is corrupted, our democracy in retreat, and elections are rigged. …