Why 30 years later, we should not condemn but sympathise with the president’s fanciful and failed dreams THE LAST WORD | ANDREW MWENDA | Last week someone sent me a video of President Yoweri Museveni speaking on December 22, 1988. In it, the President who was just two years in …
Read More »Elizabeth Kasujja: Queen’s award winner
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Elizabeth Kasujja is one of the three young Ugandans who recently won the prestigious Queen’s Young Leader award for their community service. They were awarded in London at a ceremony presided over by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom. The award distinguishes and celebrates exceptional …
Read More »The triumph of colonialism
How European claims to promote `civilisation’ in Africa remain the supreme aim of all our governments THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | One of the most successful ideological projects in contemporary history has been European colonialism, or what Marxists used to call imperialism. Vladimir Lenin called imperialism the highest …
Read More »The fall of Jennifer Musisi
COMMENT | Andrew M. Mwenda | Finally Jennifer Musisi has resigned as executive director of KCCA. This was inevitable. However, her resignation points to a deeper malady that our nation faces: the gulf between our theoretical ambitions and the pettiness of our politics. Musisi has fallen because she aspired …
Read More »Peter Nyombi, former Attorney General, dies at 64
Soweto, South Africa | IAN KATUSIIME | It is said being Attorney General is among the worst jobs in government. As the government’s legal advisor, one has to possibly take a number of untenable positions for the sake of the government. And one could say that Peter Nyombi who passed …
Read More »Africa’s highway to a dead-end
Why our obsession with foreign direct investment as a driver of our transformation is misguided THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | It is the Italian thinker-philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, who coined the term hegemony. He used it to refer to the sum total of beliefs, values, explanations and perceptions that …
Read More »Margaret Nakato Kisitu: The natural hair woman
Kampala, Uganda | AGNES E. NANTABA | Margaret Nakato Kisitu loves hair, especially natural African hair. And she has turned her passion into one of the leading hair styling businesses in Uganda. Together with her twin sister; Maria Babirye, she runs Afros and Mo, a top beauty parlour in Kampala city. …
Read More »THE LAST WORD: Recasting debates on development
What a reading of Marx and Lenin teaches us about the effects of multinational capital on poor nations THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | Raymond Mujuni of NBS television tweeted that he has began his masters’ degree in development studies with a reading of Karl Marx. This column is …
Read More »Mariam Nagujja: Teaching women about love
Kampala, Uganda | AGNES E. NANTABA | Mariam Nagujja is a communicator, writer, ardent reader, life coach and inspirational speaker especially to women. She recounts having read close to 600 books before embarking on her writing career. “Everything I do or say is referred to a book,” she says “I have …
Read More »The future we must fight for
Why our democracy will not be strengthened by a violent contest but dialogue and compromise THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | The current struggle between President Yoweri Museveni on the one hand and the two most popular opposition groups to wit Defiance led by Dr. Kizza Besigye, and …
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