Uganda’s democratic contradiction

Why I think Museveni is a liberal democrat while Bobi Wine and Besigye are potential tyrants

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M MWENDA | Last week, police using heavy-handed methods stopped the MP for Kyadondo East, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, from holding a concert. Even President Yoweri Museveni agreed that the brutality police employed was uncalled for. To make a bad situation worse, the Uganda Communications Commission then ordered television stations to fire reporters, programmers and producers who were involved in the live coverage of this event.

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The road to serfdom

How Ugandans have cultivated a mindset that is making them servants of foreigners in their own country

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | My friend Henry Mayanja left Uganda as a teenager and lived in the UK for 20 years. He worked for the UK government earning a salary and thinking he had made it. When he visited Uganda in 2011, he found some ordinary guy he left in Hima – uneducated, riding a bicycle and selling milk – a successful entrepreneur in Kampala with 24 lorries and investments in real estate. The guy explained to Henry that he had grown from the bicycle to a boda boda, to a small pickup, to the lorries.

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Is Uganda’s debt sustainable?

How Prof Hyuha Mukwanason’s response to my article fails to move beyond abstract theoretical arguments

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M MWENDA | Prof Hyuha Mukwanason wrote in Daily Monitor of April 13 a 4,214 words-long article responding to my article published in The New Vision of January 21 (2,400 words). In his response, he purported to demonstrate that Uganda’s debt is unsustainable. Yet nowhere in that long article does he make any effort to meet this promise. Instead he went into a host of irrelevant theoretical abstractions about debt generally that have little or no relevance to Uganda’s actual debt situation, ironically the very issue he was criticising me for.

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The fall of Omar Bashir

Why the Sudanese leader is a hero not a villain for nurturing the progressive forces that removed him

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Finally prolonged popular protests have brought down the 30 years long rule of Sudanese president, Gen. Omar Al Bashir. This was inspiring news for the Ugandan opposition who wish President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for 33 years now, suffers a similar fate. Sadly, these wishes are unlikely to yield anything because actions, not wishes, are what really bring down governments. Most likely Sudan may provide Museveni an opportunity to look for ways to manage future uprisings better.

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Japanese versus European colonialism

How Japanese colonialism in East Asia was transformative compared to its European counterpart in Africa

Kampala, Uganda | ANDREW M. MWENDA | I spent about ten days between late February and early March in Japan; talking to government officials, academics in universities, policy wonks in think tanks, tasting Japanese cuisine, visiting technology museums and art galleries.

I was intrigued that the Japanese do not want to speak about their role as colonisers because many of them think it was their nation at its worst.

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Our country’s misguided priorities

How the debate on Lubowa hospital exposes the self-indulgence of Ugandan elites and their poverty of ideas

Two weeks ago Uganda government approved $380m (or Shs1.4 trillion) to build an “international specialised hospital” in Lubowa. On the face of it, this is a great idea. It is prestigious for a poor country like Uganda to own a state-of-the-art hospital that can handle highly complex medical problems. Besides, if our country is to attract high-end tourism, it needs such a highly specialised hospital so that rich tourists can visit our country confident that in case of a medical emergency they can be handled.

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Uganda’s storm in a teacup

How our MPs invented a scandal around Uganda Airlines’ shares and our chattering elites joined the chorus

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” Voltaire

Last week, our parliamentar- ians alleged that some unscrupulous ministers had stolen government shares in Uganda National Airlines Company Limited (UNACL) by registering them in their private names on the shares allotment form. A “vigilant” committee of parliament “unearthed” this fraud. Parliament went hysterical with the deputy speaker, Jacob Oulanyah, saying he would have fired the ministers if he were president. On traditional and social media, pundits outdid one another denouncing this blatant theft.

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