THE LAST WORD

By Andrew M. Mwenda Peaceful protest cannot be an end in itself; it must have an objective. The tactics must seek to persuade not to intimidate Over the last one month, opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye has made one of the most dramatic political comebacks in history. Having been humiliatingly …

By Andrew M. Mwenda The incentive structure created by NATO’s commitment to the rebels will breed a movement of opportunists, not democrats. Recently, NATO airstrikes killed the son of Libyan leader Maummar Al Gaddafi and his three children. Officially, NATO’s role in the ongoing conflict in Libya is to protect …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Bin Laden argued that to end local tyranny, Muslims should fight American first; Cairo and Tunis proved him wrong On Monday, I walked into the studios of Capital FM for my morning radio show only to see breaking news on television that Osama Bin Laden had …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Local councils have undermined the effectiveness of public administration without fostering the expected accountability dividend. In 2000, Frederick Golooba-Mutebi gave me a copy of his PhD thesis written at the London School of Economics titled “Decentralisation and Development Administration in Uganda.” It is a sobering account …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Given Libya’s tribal cleavages, the contours of conflict will deepen ethnic tensions and threaten the institutional integrity of the state Now, the complexity of the political problems of Libya is becoming apparent. There is a lot of back and forth shift in fortunes between rebels and …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Uganda is now caught up in the contradiction of extreme wealth alongside excessive poverty and extreme luxury alongside mass deprivation After a long period without any public issue around which to galvanise popular discontent in their favour, the opposition in Uganda has finally found one in …

By Andrew M. Mwenda A great business can close in infancy, not because it is loss making but because it cannot get credit to overcome its initial cash flow constraints. Here is the performance of Uganda’s banks in 2010: Out of the 22 registered banks, 14 made profits, two broke …

By Andrew M. Mwenda An African leader who fights corruption will face resistance from powerful vested interests using democracy to subvert his reforms Next month, Rwanda commemorates 17 years since the genocide. Most of its citizens look back at what they have achieved with both pride and humility. The society …

We need to take responsibility for ourselves, to empower our people. External assistance is okay. But we need to begin with our own solutions. And so it was that on my flight from Amsterdam to Dubai I stumbled upon a documentary on poverty in Malawi by singer Madonna. Like most …

By Andrew .M. Mwenda Foreign intervention should not seek to win the war for Libyans. It should give them the tools to do so themselves. As street protests across the Arab world are forcing governments in that region to reform their authoritarian ways, the ones in Libya have degenerated into …