How the president, the security services and the opposition are beneficiaries of this political pathology THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Election season is with us and the police are in overdrive to beat the hell out of opposition candidates. The leading and perhaps most popular opposition presidential …
Read More »Has Museveni destroyed Uganda?
How the opposition have invented a non-existing problem and are promising to build bridges where no rivers exist THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On Monday, President Yoweri Museveni was nominated to run for an eighth term of office. When (not if) he wins this election, it …
Read More »Lessons on poverty from COVID
Why measuring poverty using income is misleading and why we need to switch to using wealth THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is seven months since Uganda locked down due to COVID. The lesson I have learnt from the lockdown is not related to health but economics. …
Read More »Uganda’s addiction to borrowing
Why our country continues to take more and more loans and what this means for the economy THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Uganda is at a crossroads. Early this year, government passed a budget of Shs32 trillion for the 2020/2021 Financial Year. It also projected to collect …
Read More »The book you must read this year
A peep into a powerful treatise that people in the free market movement need to ponder over THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Few books have gripped me as did Thomas Piketty’s economics blockbuster, Capital in the Twenty First Century. Published in 2015, I took long to read it …
Read More »Lessons from UPDF’s 50 years
Why it’s important for the army or the government to tell the story of its transformation THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Next year, the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces (UPDF) will mark three major milestone dates. It will be exactly 50 years (Golden Jubilee) since its formation under …
Read More »The real thieves of teachers’ money
THE LAST WORD: The real story of how teachers’ money was stolen and how the wrong guys were framed and jailed THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | On September 9, all major news outlets in Uganda ran a screaming headline: `Microfinance Support Centre officials charged with embezzlement’. It …
Read More »Uganda’s elite crisis
Why Dr. Kizza Besigye is right to say elites in Uganda are the most useless class THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye has argued that elites in Uganda are the most useless group in the country. Let us test this thesis and seek …
Read More »Behind the coup in Mali
The things that democracy (and pseudo democracy) evangelists need to know about freedom and liberty THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | So another military coup has taken place in Mali removing an unpopular yet democratically elected government of President Ibrahim Keita. Keita came to power as an opposition …
Read More »Lessons from youth elections
Why the opposition in Uganda needs to take organisation and unity seriously if they are to have a chance THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The nationwide youths elections this week should give the opposition in Uganda, especially the National Unity Platform (NUP), time to pose and reflect. …
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