Kampala, Uganda | AGNES NANTABA | Daniel Omara, is an actor, Television and Radio host but he is best known as a stand-up comedian, a job he started nine years ago. When he started, he was still a student at Uganda Christian University Mukono pursuing a Bachelor’s of Arts with Education …
Read More »The poverty paradox
UGANDA: Why economic development tends to increase social insecurity leading to anger THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | A couple of months ago, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics produced its survey showing that between 2012 and 2017, the number of people living in poverty increased from 19 to 27%. This provided …
Read More »Malaika Nnyanzi on lessons from her mother
Kampala, Uganda | AGNES NANTABA | Malaika Nnyanzi is a fast rising radio and TV personality in Uganda with a growing audience. She co-hosts the morning show ‘D mighty breakfast’ with Brian Mulondo on KFM. She is also an MC for events and an actress who has featured in several films …
Read More »The problem with Africa
The problem with Africa: If our countries remain poor, it’s because its leaders and elites are too kind to their people to force transformation THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, President Yoweri Museveni tweeted a picture of himself pushing a bicycle in some village “promoting” an irrigation scheme. …
Read More »Esther Nakajjigo: Young fighter for women and girls
Kampala, Uganda | AGNES NANTABA | She has been recognised by the Kabaka of Buganda, has her own TV show, owns a mid-level health centre and a Youth Centre, and is winner of the Geneva World Women’s Award as the best project for urban and rural women. She is also Uganda’s …
Read More »The challenge of state legitimacy
Government can only govern if people comply with its demands, but why do people comply? THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The German sociologist, Max Weber, argued that if the state is to exist, the dominated must obey the authority claimed by the powers that be. Then he …
Read More »Zuma, S.Africa’s unseated survivor
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | The normally calm and often jovial Jacob Zuma is a former herdboy who fought in the anti-apartheid struggle and clung on to the presidency for as long as he could, despite a string of scandals. Now aged 75, he survived by building a network …
Read More »Remembering Hugh Masekela
The horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day Johannesburg, South Africa | GWEN ANSELL | Trumpeter, flugelhorn-player, singer, composer and activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela has passed away after a long battle with prostate cancer. When he cancelled his appearance last year at the Johannesburg Joy of Jazz …
Read More »Fashionable nonsense
How the debate on governance in Africa is a toxic combination of high emotion and little knowledge THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | It is fashionable across our continent to condemn governments for poor delivery of public goods and services. This, it is argued, is caused by corruption, …
Read More »Losing my innocence
THE LAST WORD: How my hubris to become president of Uganda pulled me from the trees of utopia to the hard rock of reality THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I want to continue with a line of thought from this column last week i.e. that African countries cannot be governed …
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