COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Come to think of it, the problem is not democracy. The problem is the bureaucracy of democracy. It is the forms, the noise, the elbowing, and the sudden appearance of all manner of candidates who discover public service only when a chair is about to …
Read More »Witchdoctors, pastors and Uganda’s Cabinet frenzy
The Politics of God & god in Africa COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | With President Museveni’s swearing-in 12th May 2026 and a new Cabinet expected to follow shortly after, the scramble for ministerial positions has once again turned into an industry. An industry that feeds not only political brokers …
Read More »Press freedom needs discipline
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Sunday, 3rd May 2026, was World Press Freedom Day. I showed up at the UBC grounds in Kampala for a simple reason – to walk, listen, and absorb wisdom. Indeed, we marched about seven kilometres. That was light work. My step counter barely noticed. Then …
Read More »How nation-building really works
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Nation-building is like construction. Different leaders play different roles. Some break ground. Others raise the walls. Others will one day roof. Yet history often praises the finished building. It forgets the hands that dug the foundation. The real story begins long before the finishing mouldings …
Read More »Uganda’s story outside the headlines
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Lately, Uganda keeps appearing in international headlines. Usually it is about politics, security, or some geopolitical something. That is how the world often meets us. But if you walk around the country itself, the story feels different. Recently, I attended a forum where a joint British and …
Read More »From the Bush to the Marketplace: Africa’s real revolution is economic
BOOK REVIEW | CRISPIN KAHERU | History often remembers revolutions by the sound of guns. Yet the most transformative revolutions are quieter. They happen in the mind first, then in the marketplace, and finally in the lives of ordinary people. That is the central lesson from ‘My Psycho-Economic Evolution’, the reflections …
Read More »Why the Thursday 15 January 2026 poll is yet another test of citizenship
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Uganda is, without doubt, the Pearl of Africa. But Ugandans also have a strange habit. We complain and lament about our politics, then boom; we speak in whispers on Election Day by staying home. We write passionate essays in WhatsApp groups about governance, then fail the …
Read More »When the ballot is under cyber-attack, protecting the vote should be a human rights duty
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Whenever people speak of a stolen election, what often comes to mind are stuffed ballot boxes and forged tally sheets. Today, all over the world, it may look a little different. The concept is the same, though, but the method has changed. Elections are now stolen …
Read More »Why Uganda’s great political contest should be about land
Whoever Masters the Land Question Will Own Uganda’s Future COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Uganda’s great political contest is probably not erupting in rallies or through slogans; it is unfolding quietly across village boundaries, homesteads and rising factory blocks. It is felt when a father divides his half-acre among five children …
Read More »KEVIN COLGAN: A Diplomat whose service in Uganda has been a lifetime story of purpose
COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | In 2020, he arrived in Kampala quietly. No fanfare. No motorcade. Just a deep sense of purpose. One morning in Karamoja, he stepped onto the dusty ground. The children and the elderly ran towards him, some barefoot and smiling. He didn’t wave from a distance. He …
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The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price