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 »Col. Bantariza: A lion retires
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I woke up yesterday morning only to hear that the deputy head of the Uganda Media Centre Col. Shaban Bantariza is dead. The news struck me like a thunderbolt partly part because I least expected it but largely because Bantariza was not …
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 »Sudan, two years after Bashir
Why those who want change in Uganda need to think much more creatively about what it means THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | Nearly two years since Gen. Omar El Bashir was removed from power through a popular uprising, Sudan is tottering on the edge of collapse. The government …
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 »Why violence in NRM primaries
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, NRM primaries degenerated into violence. Candidates and their supporters clashed with opponents leading to the shedding of blood. Some people died. The army and police were called in to keep the peace. There was massive rigging. Some people were surprised …
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