Why our nations remain poor

African elites are victims of their own delusions about distorted history of developed countries 

On Dec.01, I attended the Joseph Mubiru Memorial Lecture hosted by Bank of Uganda and featuring Prof. Ha Joon Chang of the University of Cambridge. A brilliant economist lecturer, Ha is one of the smartest unorthodox thinkers. I owe him an intellectual debt because his work has influenced my thinking. Three of his books – `Kicking Away The Ladder, Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don’t Teach You About Capitalism’ – are must reads. Ha empasised the importance of industrialisation for any country seeking to become rich.

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Rethinking politics in Africa

How events in Zimbabwe expose the false assumptions that inform explanations of developments on this continent

There is a widespread assumption that presidents in Africa who rule for long do so out of personal greed for power. This accusation has been made against Robert Mugabe who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 before he was forced to resign recently. It is also the accusation against President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda as the ruling party seeks to amend the constitution and remove age limits so that he can run for the presidency in 2021. Yet when individual cases are examined closely, one finds the reality much more complex and nuanced. Let me illustrate.

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The meaning of Muntu’s defeat

How Besigye’s hold over FDC has undermined its pretence to be a vehicle for democracy 

 “Follow an idea from its birth to its triumph,” Bertrand de Jouvenel observed in his 1948 volume, On Power, “and it becomes clear that it came to power at the price of an astounding degradation of itself. The result is not reason which has found a guide but passion which has found a flag.”

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The tragedy of Robert Mugabe

How Western cunning exploited African gullibility to demonise the Zimbabwean president 

 President Robert Mugabe is leaving power under duress after 37 years as leader of Zimbabwe. His fall has been celebrated as the “end of an error.” He has been vilified as an ageing, corrupt despot that wrecked his country’s economy and wanted to hand power to his wife after ruling for too long. But how long is too long?

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A frank memo to the opposition

Stop sloganeering over peripheral issues called “governance” and seriously think about our strategic challenges

   I have a frustration with President Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda: even after 30 years of impressive economic growth rates, Uganda is still far from any significant transition from a backward rural agricultural society to a modern urban industrial economy. Nearly 80% of Ugandans still depend on agriculture for a livelihood and live in rural areas. Industry employs only 8% of our people while services employ 12%.

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Africa’s highway to nowhere

Why our continent’s faith in foreign direct investment as a solution to our poverty is a pipedream   

 Many presidents in Africa believe the development of our nations will come from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). If a “foreign investor” – most especially a white man (and today increasingly an Arab, Indian or Chinese) – showed up in the capital of an African country, he would easily get audience with the president even where local investors take months or even years to be listened to.

And it is not just leaders. African elites – professionals, civil servants, journalists, academics, etc. – believe this gospel as well. 

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Crisis of the state in Uganda

How foreign interests have captured Uganda’s politics thereby turning our people from citizens to clients
  Police recently raided the offices of some Non-government Organisations (NGOs) including Action Aid Uganda and Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS) and froze their accounts. The government accuses them of funding a campaign against the amendment of the constitution to remove age limits. Many Ugandans feel sympathetic to these NGOs. Yet, if the accusations against them are true, the government would be right to even shut them down.

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