About me.

Andrew M. Mwenda is the founding Managing Editor of The Independent, Uganda’s premier current affairs newsmagazine. One of Foreign Policy magazine 's top 100 Global Thinkers, TED Speaker and Foreign aid Critic



Monday, August 28, 2017

Trump’s mirror to America

How the U.S. president has exposed the hypocrisy of his nation’s media and academia

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump did what he does best: hold a mirror to his country. And the American elite hate the image they see of themselves. So they have been pummeling him using all their powerful institutions of mass propaganda, calling him a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi, and a bigoted SOB – all of which is true.

Monday, August 21, 2017

A new Mulago arises


A new Mulago arises: The challenge the new hospital will face and what can be done to protect it from Uganda’s politics

Last week, I visited the new specialised maternal and neonatal center being constructed at Mulago Hospital. With a built up area of 24,000 square meters, ten floors tall and equipped with 450 hospital beds, it is going to be the largest specialised maternal and neonatal hospital in Africa. It is being built to handle such things as in-vitro fertilisation, embryo transfer, pelvic reconstruction, hysteroscope, etc. this will be one of the most advance hospitals on our continent. It will cost $24.4 million to construct, $7.8 million in equipment and another $1 million in training of its staff. The top floor has a presidential suite and eight executive suites for the rich to pay top dollar for the best medical service.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

The Kenya, Rwanda elections

Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officials make a sweep of electoral material August 7, 2017 at a holding centre in Kagio before their distribution to the polling stations a day before the Kenya general election.
KENYA, RWANDA: How voting in these two East African nations reflects our understanding of democracy

East Africa has recently witnessed two presidential elections – in Rwanda and in Kenya. The two nations are different. Rwanda is a small country with one ethnic group which shares a common language, culture, and a history of nationhood and statehood for the last 550 years. Kenya, on the other hand, is a recent creation of the British; a hotchpotch of tens of ethnic groups that had never formed one unified nation and state. Rwanda has been through military coups, civil war, and genocide. Kenya has been stable.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Defying the odds, defining oneself



African leaders Kagame, Museveni, Magufuli and Mugabe setting an African agenda, defying the odds.
How Africans have been mentally enslaved to hate everything about themselves and how Rwanda is defying it

“In these bloody days and frightful nights when the urban warrior can find no face more despicable than his own, no ammunition more deadly than self hate and no target more deserving of his true aim than his own brother, we must wonder how we came so late and lonely to this place.” Maya Angelou.
Brian Klaas, a fellow at the London School of Economics, perhaps did not know what he was getting himself into when he tweeted his Washington Post article, saying: “As the world focuses on Trump, African despots are violating term limits and badly overstaying their welcome.”

Why Kagame won 99%



Kagame during the campaigns. FILE PHOTO flickr/paulkagame

How Rwandans reacted to the west’s war against the symbol of their nation’s success

Last week, Paul Kagame won presidential elections in Rwanda by 98.6%. Historically, such margins have only been won in countries like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was under the tight grip of a tyrant. To many observers armed with this experience, the election in Rwanda and Kagame’s margin of victory does not have to be analyzed in its specificity. It is only explained by citing the experience of other nations. Therefore, to many commentators, Kagame’s margin of victory does not reflect anything unique and specific to his country. Instead it only confirms the prejudice that Rwanda today is the same as Sadam’s Iraq.