Senior Presidential Advisor on the Media and Public Relations, John Nagenda, died March 4 aged 84 Kampala, Uganda | Andrew M. Mwenda | Senior Presidential Advisor on the Media and Public Relations, John Mwesigwa Robin Nagenda, is dead. He died March 4 at Medipal Hospital in Kampala aged 84. He was as …
Read More »John Nagenda; Why the press hates and loves him big too
FROM THE ARCHIVES | ANDREW MWENDA | I wrote this article about John Nagenda in THE MONITOR in 1996. If I was to write an eulogy of him today, I would still write the same. ******* By Andrew M. Mwenda ( The Monitor 1996) Presidential Advisor on the Media and …
Read More »Myth-making development
Why a lot of surmons about economic transformation are a mixture of oversimplification and moralising THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished diplomat from Singapore and twice served as that country’s permanent representative to the United Nations. And he is also a brilliant intellectual and author. His …
Read More »One year of war in Ukraine
How all sides to this conflict made strategic miscalculations that will reshape the world order THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Today (February 24th) marks one year since Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine in what President Vladmir Putin called a “special military operation.” Since then, the war has only proved …
Read More »The Kampala roads disaster
How the infrastructure in our capital city has declined to resemble that of Mogadishu after 30 years of civil war THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Kampala has ceased to be a city. It now looks like a war zone. The roads around the city have literally fallen apart. Potholes rule …
Read More »Rwanda, DRC and M23
How politics in Kinshasa has united with interests in the “international community” to sustain Congo as a failed state THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Rwanda is a very unlucky country. It is the most developmentalist state in Africa. Yet its ambitions to modernise do not depend entirely on its own …
Read More »Paul Biya’s embarrassing video
Why we need to remove Western lenses when analysing politics in Africa THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | During the USA-Africa summit in December last year, President Paul Biya of Cameroon was videotaped in a highly compromising situation. Old and senile at almost 90, he entered the conference hall unaware of …
Read More »Lessons for Uganda from Afghanistan
It is now time to allow Al Shabab take over power in Somalia and form a government THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | It is almost two years since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan with its tail between its legs. This was in spite of spending $2.01 trillion on that …
Read More »The coming electricity disaster
How the nationalisation of Umeme is going to cause massive disruption in the distribution of electricity THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | The decision by the government of Uganda to nationalise Umeme is yet another disaster on the same scale as the one to absorb UNRA into the Ministry …
Read More »A peep into the future of our roads
Why the merger of UNRA back into the Ministry of Works is going to be an unmitigated disaster THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | In the last few years, the government of Uganda has been latching from one bad policy move to another with incredible consistency. One of such policy …
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