COLUMNISTS

How events in Zimbabwe expose the false assumptions that inform explanations of developments on this continent THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | 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 …

How Besigye’s hold over FDC has undermined its pretence to be a vehicle for democracy THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | “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 …

How Western cunning exploited African gullibility to demonise the Zimbabwean president THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | 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, …

Stop sloganeering over peripheral issues called “governance” and seriously think about our strategic challenges THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | 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 …

TODAY NOVEMBER 19, IN UGANDA HISTORY: FDC presidential candidate for life, Kizza Besigye, first declared his intention to run for president for the first time on October 28, 2000. On November 19, only three weeks later, ANDREW MWENDA wrote this article for The Monitor.  Kampala, November 19, 2000 | Daily …

Planning buzzwords like `smart cities’mean little if the theories behind them benefit only a few COMMENT| CHRISTINE AUCLAIR & MAHMOUD AL BURAI | Cities, the American-Canadian author Jane Jacobs once observed, are engines for national prosperity and economic growth. But in their current form, modern cities are also catalysts of inequality and environmental …

Why Kenya’s opposition resistance movement could be important for democracy COMMENT | SEKOU TOURE OTONDI | In his last address at Uhuru Park on the eve of Kenya’s October 26 election re-run, Raila Odinga announced the creation of what he called a National Resistance Movement. In a later interview with CNN, he clarified …

Why the private sector’s hype about the consumer habits of the African middle class isn’t helpful COMMENT | HENNING MELBER | The African middle class is of huge interest to business. This was confirmed again recently by well attended seminars in South Africa’s big cities to discuss “African Lions: groundbreaking study on the …

Why our continent’s faith in foreign direct investment as a solution to our poverty is a pipedream THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | 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 …

How foreign interests have captured Uganda’s politics thereby turning our people from citizens to clients THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | 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 …