Charles Onyango-Obbo, Mukasa-Mbidde, Godfrey Kiwanda, Patrick Wakida contrast them with Uganda Kampala, Uganda | MUBATSI ASINJA HABATI | On August 9, Kenyans went to the polls to elect their leaders at presidential, county and parliamentary levels. The top presidential candidates Raila Odinga and William Ruto hotly competed. The general elections …
Read More »Holiday reading
Five picks from a great year for African writing BOOKS REVIEW | THE INDEPENDENT | Leading Kenyan author, journalist and academic, Prof. Peter Kimani has listed an exciting analytical compilation of essays edited by renowned Uganda journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo among his top five picks for this Christmas holiday reading. Prof. …
Read More »China loans: Quality of negotiation from Africa is very Poor
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | African States have been told to improve on the quality of their negotiation towards China Financing for infrastructural projects. China is a major donor to African states, but many are worried that the mountains of cash for infrastructure development might actually end up as a …
Read More »A letter to Andrew Mwenda
By Charles Onyango-Obbo About free markets, democracy, and why world peace might be bad I am writing this letter directly to you Andrew Mwenda. First, to say, I am glad that you are now like the prodigal son who is – kind of – returning home. For a few years …
Read More »Behind Museveni’s political kissing and makeup: A president searches for his legacy
By Charles Onyango-Obbo Recently I was visiting with Andrew Mwenda, the Strategy and Editorial Director of The Independent at his Butabika home when he squeezed me for a favour. He asked that I write about what I thought President Yoweri Museveni was trying to achieve with his “reconciliatory” actions towards …
Read More »Despite the madness of walk-to-work crackdown, good has come out of it
By Charles Onyango-Obbo It takes Museveni more men to stop Besigye from walking, than it took US President Obama to kill terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. After the recent violence-riddled weeks in Uganda as the government cracked down on the opposition-led “walk-to-wolk” protests, and crowned it by an unnerving savage …
Read More »Museveni won elections because he has been a bad, not good, president
By Charles Onyango-Obbo People have lost faith in elections and stayed away in 2011. That’s why he did not use violence this time because people were not fighting back. President Yoweri Museveni’s victory in the February 18 elections, and the fact that his percentage of the vote increased from 58 …
Read More »Museveni’s big cabinet keeps his rivals happy
By Charles Onyango-Obbo Uganda is a medium-size African country, but at 71 has the continent’s second largest cabinet. Even more remarkable, it has the world’s third largest cabinet after North Korea! The question is, to what end? There is an increasing body of literature that argues, quite convincingly, that there …
Read More »A new look at corruption
By Charles Onyango-Obbo Inside the belly of the beast I have just spent a few days in the countryside, and I noticed one change from just five or so years ago; everyone is talking about “how bad corruption is in Uganda”. Some refer to the various incidents of corruption involving …
Read More »A tale of Museveni versus Kagame
By Charles Onyango Obbo Andrew Mwenda’s ‘A Tale Of Two Presidents, Two Nations and Two Revolutions‘ has generated a lot of debate. On one hand you have Rwanda’s President Kagame, who has the image of being iron-fisted, and leads a poor country that has been able to make far-reaching achievements, …
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