COLUMNISTS

By Andrew M.Mwenda With nominations for parliamentary candidates finished, independents (largely malcontents who lost in the NRM primaries) are now the largest political party in the contest albeit a non-organised and unconscious one. By November 30, out of the 238 directly contestable seats, independents had fielded 269 candidates (in 95 …

By Andrew Mwenda Last week, I finished reading Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, an inside account of Obama’s approach to the war in Afghanistan. Then on Sunday night, I watched a two-hour documentary on National Geographic titled Inside Talibanistan, an interesting tale of the complexity of fighting the Taliban …

By Prof. Micheal Madill The debate about universal primary education (UPE) is mired in arguments about statistics and public relations. You only have to pick up a newspaper and read the finely calibrated comments on all sides following the publication of the Uwezo report. We are bickering about literacy rates, numbers …

By Timothy Kalyegira National events at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala like Independence Day, Labour Day and others used to last about two hours. Since 2008, they have started taking on the feel of mammoth, all-day festivals. The main reason is that as President Yoweri Museveni has gotten more insecure in …

By Andrew Mwenda Last Saturday, October 16, I was a guest on Capital Radio’s Capital Gang programme and our debate settled down to the subject of democracy in Africa ‘ specifically on Uganda and Rwanda. Like most debate on anything in Africa, the discussion did not use the facts of …

By Henry Zakumumpa If you were born today, which country would provide you the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous, and upwardly mobile life? This was the intriguing question posed in an unprecedented study by Newsweek, a leading American international magazine. The study was conducted between …

By Andrew Mwenda Last weekend, we celebrated 48 years of independence. Sadly, many Ugandans (and Africans generally) do not appreciate the political significance of this event largely because of the failures of post independence governments. The resultant frustration has given vent to sections of the international community, largely from the …

By Independent Team A few days ago someone asked me why has Rwanda been so successful and what has made it so. He was partly reacting to an article I wrote elsewhere, outlining the reasons to which I attribute the strong emotions debates about Rwanda tend to provoke. A few …

By Andrew Mwenda The common message against President Paul Kagame of Rwanda is that he is a ‘media predator.’ The Ugandan ‘democracy’ crowd claim I cannot host a show like Andrew Mwenda Live in Rwanda. Yet the threat to the show would not be Kagame perceived intolerance. The show would …

By Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi I recently moved from New York to Nairobi to protect you better; to be closer to you,” declared Tom Rhodes of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) at a press briefing at Hotel Africana on September 23. Rhodes was part of an international joint mission on …