Why Dr. Kizza Besigye is right to say elites in Uganda are the most useless class THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye has argued that elites in Uganda are the most useless group in the country. Let us test this thesis and seek …
Read More »Election rigging and Besigye’s choice
How legitimate claims of electoral malpractice have blinded the opposition to its strategic weaknesses THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Leading opposition figure, Dr. Kizza Besigye, has said he will not participate in the coming presidential elections because it will not be free and fair. …
Read More »When enemies feed each other
Why Uganda’s pro-democracy activists get it wrong when they support radical extremist cults as alternatives to Museveni THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In their misguided (even though, perhaps, well-intentioned) war against President Yoweri Museveni, many pro-democracy (but mostly pseudo-democracy) “activists” bring three fundamentally erroneous assumptions. First, that …
Read More »Impunity and corruption at Bank of Uganda
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, Bank of Uganda (BOU) issued a press statement in which it promised to appeal a ruling by the Court of Appeal in a case against businessman Sudhir Ruparelia over Crane Bank. Yet the statement did not deal with the …
Read More »Uganda’s misguided COVID response
Why the utopian dream of a COVID-free Uganda may have become a springboard for private profiteering THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On June 24 morning I walked into Kikuubo, the epicenter of Uganda’s trade, in Kampala city. I found tens of thousands of people congested on …
Read More »Phil Manzi, a lesson in greatness
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last night, Sunday 19th of April 2020, I lost a young friend, Phil Manzi, to lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes! He was only 19! Why does death suddenly rob the world of such a young soul whose future was ahead …
Read More »Fighting the corona virus
What we should know about our public medical facilities and their professionals as we face a pandemic THE LAST WORD | Andrew M Mwenda | The corona virus is finally with us. For a large and loud section of Ugandan elites, our country should have the facilities like Intensive Care …
Read More »Inside the American election
Why populists like Bernie Sanders fool themselves when they promise to change the way America works THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | As the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries in the USA gather momentum, candidates have made healthcare a central issue in their elect-ability. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth …
Read More »Uganda’s politics of fiction
How political competition in our country is conducted on wild promises based on imaginary state capabilities THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | We are entering an election season and many things are going to go wrong in this country. President Yoweri Museveni will not initiate anything serious fearing …
Read More »Museveni opens a Pandora’s box
How the president’s intervention to halt the procurement of Kampala-Jinja expressway is a disaster THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, I had a meeting in Mukono, a town only 20km east of Kampala. The meeting was scheduled for 2pm. Knowing the heavy traffic on Jinja …
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