How Dubai, a city state ruled by an absolute monarch, challenges Western notions of rationalism and individual autonomy THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | I spent the whole of this week in Dubai, the second richest emirate of the United Arab Emirates. It is a city-state that …
Read More »Museveni’s Covid paranoia
Why Uganda and other African countries have consistently taken extreme and inappropriate Covid interventions THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | This week, President Yoweri Museveni addressed the nation on Covid-19. With infection and death rates down, the President did little to open up the country. Most especially; he left …
Read More »Is Uganda’s economy failing?
Why Ugandan pundits are mistaken in their understanding of why some foreign firms have quit our market THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | A couple of multinational firms have pulled out of Uganda in the last one decade. Oil giant Shell sold itself to Vivo, Barclays Bank …
Read More »Losing sight of grand strategy
How Kampala’s cold war with Kigali harms Uganda’s national interest and what can be done about it THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) arrested the Vice Chancellor of Victoria University, Lawrence Muganda, apparently on charges of espionage. Muganga is not …
Read More »Lokech; the passing of a giant
The life and work of the former Deputy Inspector General of Police who made a lasting contribution to Uganda THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On the morning of Saturday August 21, I was driving to Fort Portal but got a puncture 20km before Mityana. While trying to …
Read More »The defeat of liberal imperialism
Why poorly armed Taliban triumphed over the US military after two decades of war THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The rapid collapse of the Afghanistan government before a rag tag army of (apparently) “poorly trained, poorly armed, poorly resourced and poorly commanded Taliban” (or so the lords …
Read More »Obama’s `Promised Land’
How the former president’s memoirs show a good insight to US politics but provides prejudice on other nations THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | I find former U.S. president, Barack Obama, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, socially intelligent, calm and reasonable. But I also find him pompous, pretentious, opportunistic, arrogant …
Read More »Uganda’s self-destructive impulses
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Since the NRM government fully embraced neoliberal reforms in 1992, Uganda has witnessed the growth to dominance of multinational capital in our economy and with that the equal decline to near-insignificance of local/national/domestic/indigenous capital. But this has only been successful because the …
Read More »Inside Uganda’s political delusions
How the hullabaloo and bruhaha over MPs allocating themselves Shs200bn for cars is much ado over nothing THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is July 2021 and as is custom, Uganda’s elites are going through a ritual they indulge every five years – complain about money …
Read More »Ethiopia’s failed reform
How Africa’s most successful economy has produced a political crisis that may tear it apart THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is eight months now since the armed conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), began. Initially, government troops, supported by Eritrean …
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