COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | The member of parliament (MP) position is so exalted and privileged that elected MPs automatically earn the title of ‘Honourable’ before proving their capacity for honour. Over the past week, Rakai District Woman MP Honorable Juliet Kinyamatama has faced a baptism of fire and brimstone owing …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Years ago, probably after the sun-kissed year of 1986, I heard a story that tickled me. Dear reader, I present to you an embellished version of the story. One Sunday, a preacher stood at the church pulpit, looking back at the expectant congregation. Unbeknownst to the …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Prime Minister Robbinah Nabbanja is onto something. A brilliant idea to lift Uganda’s dysfunctional service delivery off the floor where it resides in chronic malaise. The crux of Nabbanja’s idea entails that for service delivery to improve, civil servants should be direct beneficiaries of that service. …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | A worrying trend is upon us. Flammable snowflake leaders have made a mockery of shame. Shame no longer lives here. Instead, brazen impunity parades its wares. Consider these three exhibits. Exhibit 1: The Uganda Media Council is responsible for regulating media as mandated by the Press and …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | “I think of you as the freest person I know…Then everyone you know is a slave.”This haunting line is from the Ayi Kwei Armah’s classic book, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, on the failure of post- independence African leaders. Enter Sam Mugumya. In 2014, …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Lately, homosexuality in a hostile takeover has grabbed our social media feeds and news headlines. The news headlines must be grateful for the break. Now we do not have to hear about corruption, unbridled ineptitude, and torture nio nio nio. We Ugandans of upright standing and …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | The headline that Thursday morning was equivalent to ‘Man Bites Dog.’ Trending across multiple news feeds was the brutal arrest of torture survivors outside the offices of the national human rights institution. On February 9, five members of the Torture Survivors Movement Uganda attempted to deliver …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | It is now a year since a firestorm erupted in the wake of writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s torture ordeal in state custody. In December 2021, state agents broke into Kakwenza’s home, abducting him. In early January 2022, court ordered police to release Kakwenza – the police did …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | In recent days, yet another embarrassing video of a geriatric African president failing spectacularly trended online – 89-year-old Cameroonian president Paul Biya lost his marbles for an excruciating three minutes during the December 2022 USA-Africa Summit. In the video, he farts, looks around seemingly unaware that …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | In the run-up to the 2021 Uganda presidential elections, as tensions ratcheted up, a battle-hardened journalist friend asked a French diplomat his thoughts on the growing tensions. The French diplomat calmly responded: “I hold a French passport. I will leave for the airport and …
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The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price