COLUMNISTS

By Jon Qwelane I respond to the article ‘Apartheid in post-apartheid South Africa’ by Andrew M. Mwenda (The Independent, November 12-18, 2010). Mwenda’s piece is much like the proverbial curate’s egg “ it is good in places. My summation is that it is very bad in the places where it is …

By Andrew M. Mwenda With the nominations for LC5 candidates done, Sunday Vision reported that the ruling NRM has candidates in all the 112 districts; FDC has candidates in only 40 districts, UPC 27 and DP 13. The combined opposition has candidates in only 80 districts. Meanwhile, there are 118 …

By Justice Prof. G.W. Kanyeihamba My friend, Dr Abel Rwendeire, was one of my opponents in the Constituent Assembly elections which I won. In the 1996 Parliamentary elections, I did not stand but supported his opponent whom he defeated. Nevertheless, before and after those elections and minor differences, we have …

By Andrew M. Mwenda On October 24th, I went to Entebbe Airport to catch a South African Airways flight via Johannesburg to Namibia. Airline officials said I needed a transit visa through South Africa. I explained that I was not going to enter the country, only to change flights in …

By Joseph Ossiya You cannot change what you will not confront. When one considers the historical aspects of the birth of the entity Uganda, they are fraught with political landmines and buried skeletons, the types of which have the capacity to unravel its very identity and challenge its existence. The …

By Andrew M. Mwenda On Wednesday last week, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) published results of its National Household Survey which showed that the proportion of people living in poverty has declined from 31 to 23%. It was good news for President Yoweri Museveni who had just been nominated …

By Kennedy Opalo What is good for the goose ought to be good for the gander or so you would think. In an era when the rise of China and India is forcing the question what the relationship wealth creation has to the type of government; whether democratic or authoritarian …

By Andrew M.Mwenda With nominations for parliamentary candidates finished, independents (largely malcontents who lost in the NRM primaries) are now the largest political party in the contest albeit a non-organised and unconscious one. By November 30, out of the 238 directly contestable seats, independents had fielded 269 candidates (in 95 …

By Andrew Mwenda Last week, I finished reading Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, an inside account of Obama’s approach to the war in Afghanistan. Then on Sunday night, I watched a two-hour documentary on National Geographic titled Inside Talibanistan, an interesting tale of the complexity of fighting the Taliban …

By Prof. Micheal Madill The debate about universal primary education (UPE) is mired in arguments about statistics and public relations. You only have to pick up a newspaper and read the finely calibrated comments on all sides following the publication of the Uwezo report. We are bickering about literacy rates, numbers …