By Andrew M. Mwenda Laetitia Bader from Human Rights Watch accuses me of justifying restrictions imposed on independent media in Rwanda by the RPF government. I do not know how she came to this conclusion. But I have a fundamental philosophical difference with her. I believe that freedom is not …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Last week, I argued that President Yoweri Museveni has actively stifled the growth of a robust private enterprise sector generally though he has promoted the growth of individual businesses. He has pitted indigenous capital against non indigenous capital by giving preferential treatment to the latter and …

By Juma A. Okuku  President Museveni continuously talks about the need for Uganda to industrialise. In the third part of our Insight series, Juma A. Okuku looks at the African experience and tries to answer why we have so far failed to industrialise. The first part was published in Issue …

By Andrew M. Mwenda I argued last week that there is a small but very vocal group of Ugandans who have taken their legitimate anger against the regime of Yoweri Museveni into a condemnation of the Ugandan society generally. This trend is beneficial to Museveni and company because a cynical …

By Melina Platas   Traitor or a survivor? Many believe that Ssekandi will not be remembered for his objectivity, as Nsibambi suggests, but rather as the Speaker who made the most controversial decisions. Get me the Speaker,’ Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi demands, and then hangs up the phone. A few …

By Andrew M. Mwenda A few weeks ago, a Western diplomat invited a couple of us to lunch to discuss the major challenge facing our nation and what the West ‘should do’ (I would have preferred ‘should not do’) about it. As I listened to Ugandan colleagues speak, I got …

By Andrew M. Mwenda Presidential pledges in Uganda today stand at a record Shs 120 billion. These are promises of assistance the president makes to different groups, individuals and institutions and are paid for by the state. They have been accumulating over the years, some for over a decade. Intended …

By Andrew M. Mwenda On November 4, Americans go to the polls to elect a president in what USA media has been calling a ‘historic election.’ Of course, there is nothing ‘historic’ about it except for the fact that one candidate ‘ Barack Obama ‘ is referred to as African …

Last week, I traced the history and showed the shape of the current financial crisis that has held the world hostage; today, I discus the direct impact it could have to Uganda.  Will the rescue efforts by governments in the west to contain the current financial crisis work? History is …

By Andrew M. Mwenda The financial meltdown in Europe and North America has continued in spite of the large sums of money governments have pumped into the financial markets to prop them up. On October 10th, both the Dow Jones Index in New York and the FTSE in London fell …