The politics of Gen. Sejusa’s return

How the renegade general’s antics demonstrate the poverty of opposition politics in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa

The return of Gen. David Sejusa aka Tinyefuza from exile in the United Kingdom on Dec.14 was sudden and, for most people, unexpected. Tinyefuza has been a consistent disappointment to those who believe he is worth anything. He blows hot and cold. He has a habit of raising hopes and then disappointing them at the very last minute. I admit that each time I have talked to him; I have found him a very intelligent, articulate, and thoughtful intellectual. However, it seems that all too often, his emotions overpower his reason. Consequently, his most important actions, even when driven by legitimate grievances and reasons, are influenced by a reckless impulse, a factor that renders them unproductive or even counterproductive.

Tweet

Inside Africa’s major contradiction

Why African elites sound angry and frustrated though continent’s economies grow faster than rest of the world

Over the last decade and a half, Sub Sahara African economies have been growing fast and creating prosperity for many. Today, our continent is exporting and importing more and our governments, investors, and consumers are spending in per capita terms. Yet many African elites, especially the chattering classes on social media, sound angrier and frustrated.

Tweet

Behind America’s façade of democracy

Lessons for Africa from the daily killings of young black teenagers in America at the hands of racist police officers

The ink had not yet dried on the grand jury decision that exonerated police officer Darren Wilson for the cold-bloodied murder of 18-year old Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri when another trigger-happy police officer, Timothy Loehmann, shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland Ohio. The little boy was playing with a toy gun in a children’s park. And it took the officer only two seconds upon arrival on the scene to shoot and kill him. In both cases, and in many such cases on a daily basis in America, black male teenagers are killed by white police officers for no reason except the colour of their skin. And in almost all the cases, these white police officers get away with it in this supposedly democratic country.

Tweet

On the NRM delegates conference

As NRM climbs down from idealism to reality, the FDC may need to learn something about its own utopias

On Dec. 15, a special National Resistance Movement (NRM) Delegates Conference called by President Yoweri Museveni will be held at Namboole National Stadium. The main purpose is to amend the party constitution to ensure that the Secretary General is not elected by party members but appointed by Museveni; the chairman. It is a sad but illuminating reversal of a canonical principle of the founding philosophy of the NRM i.e. that a political party should be built on democratic principles and its leaders elected.

Tweet