What the politics of People Power tells us about the nature of government they will preside over THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | People Power is the most trending political cult in Uganda. They are angry at the corruption of President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement …
Read More »THE LAST WORD: Missing insights in our healthcare
 THE LAST WORD: The lesson from pictures of many newly born babies packed on beds and chairs at Kawempe Hospital THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, someone took pictures of Kawempe Hospital with a multitude of newly born babies laying on congested hospital beds and …
Read More »Museveni’s wealth creation tours
  THE LAST WORD: Why the president’s countrywide tours may win him peasant votes but not make them rich THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | President Yoweri Museveni concluded his countrywide tour, an early campaign effort creatively dabbed “wealth creation,” with a letter to “bazukulu”. The letter is …
Read More »Bobby Wine’s Ziggy Wyne
How an unknown young man’s death turned him into a political football for opportunistic politicians THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, it became apparent that the initial news that a one Michael [K]alinda aka Zigy Wyne had been kidnapped, eye yanked out, fingers chopped off and …
Read More »Inside the NRM struggle
William Pike’s account of the clash between Museveni’s utopia and Uganda’s hard reality THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | A The capture of power by President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) in January 1986 was a moment of great hope. Blood had been shed, lives lost, careers …
Read More »The dangers to our liberty
THE LAST WORD: Why we should be wary of the influence of new communication technologies in the hands of extremists THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In 1948 George Orwell published his novel, 1984. It is a classic statement of the danger to individual liberty posed by increasing …
Read More »Criminalising being poor
Why governance standards set in the West and imposed on poor countries are dangerous THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, a friend posted on a social media platform an article by a US scholar about life in a democracy and an autocracy as imagined by Americans! …
Read More »Our nation’s threatened middle
The challenges of being independent in Uganda’s increasingly polarised and toxic debates THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In March of this year, President Yoweri Museveni invited me to speak to National Resistance Movement (NRM) Members of Parliament (MPs) then on a retreat in Kyankwanzi. The day before …
Read More »The corruption of Uganda football
How the Cranes blundered in Cairo when they went on strike over pay and refused to train THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, the Uganda Cranes players went on strike in Cairo Egypt, where they were competing in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). They …
Read More »Uganda’s budget dilemma
How our government’s attempts to do too many things for all citizens spreads our meager resources too thin THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Poor countries suffer a fundamental contradiction in both design and aspiration. The state is designed and thus seeks to perform functions exactly like states …
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