The life and work of the former Deputy Inspector General of Police who made a lasting contribution to Uganda
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On the morning of Saturday August 21, I was driving to Fort Portal but got a puncture 20km before Mityana. While trying to fix my car by the roadside, a friend called me. Andrew, he said in a loud voice, our friend (Deputy Inspector General of Police, Paul) Lokech is dead.
Why poorly armed Taliban triumphed over the US military after two decades of war
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The rapid collapse of the Afghanistan government before a rag tag army of (apparently) “poorly trained, poorly armed, poorly resourced and poorly commanded Taliban” (or so the lords of global wisdom judged), marks the defeat of one of the most disastrous experiments in international relations – liberal imperialism!
How the former president’s memoirs show a good insight to US politics but provides prejudice on other nations
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | I find former U.S. president, Barack Obama, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, socially intelligent, calm and reasonable. But I also find him pompous, pretentious, opportunistic, arrogant and very inconsiderate. These diametrically opposed feelings come alive in his memoirs, `A promised Land’. It is the story of Obama’s rise to the presidency and his first term in office. A large part of it is therefore devoted to domestic politics in the USA. His observations on America’s racial divide, and the challenges this “oldest democracy” has encountered in trying to build racial equality are powerful.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Since the NRM government fully embraced neoliberal reforms in 1992, Uganda has witnessed the growth to dominance of multinational capital in our economy and with that the equal decline to near-insignificance of local/national/domestic/indigenous capital. But this has only been successful because the ideas we so easily embrace help undermine the development of local/national/domestic capital and facilitate its takeover by multinational capital. Many of the economic woes Uganda suffers spring from this disease.
How the hullabaloo and bruhaha over MPs allocating themselves Shs200bn for cars is much ado over nothing
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is July 2021 and as is custom, Uganda’s elites are going through a ritual they indulge every five years – complain about money allocated to Members of Parliament (MPs) to buy cars. Later this year (and again as happens with every new parliament) MPs will increase their salaries and thereby spark off yet another round of public condemnation and anger. This year particularly, our chattering classes on traditional and social media have an added justification for their fury – COVID restrictions.
