How the world’s most powerful nation has been beaten by a third rate power it has sanctioned for 47 years THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Karl Von Clausewitz, the great 19th-century Prussian military strategist and general, said that “war is politics by other means.” What …
Read More »On Museveni’s support to industrialists
What Uganda can learn from countries that enjoyed industrial transformation THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | My friend, Ellison Karuhanga, wrote a brilliant defense of President Yoweri Museveni’s policy of allocating state benefits to private companies in pursuit of Uganda’s industrial development. He argued that the president’s critics …
Read More »Museveni’s 7th term: The AK-47, the Pen, and Sunrise
COMMENT | ANDREW PI BESI | It all began with Andrew Mwenda’s unfortunate description of President Yoweri Museveni as old and senile. Days later, President Museveni, in a manner typical of him, responded through the same medium (X formerly Twitter), writing, to wit: “Mr Mwenda, thank you for declaring me senile …
Read More »Your Excellency, The Numbers Do Not Lie: A respectful response to the President
Kampala, Uganda | COMMENT | President Yoweri Museveni, your response to Andrew Mwenda, published recently and widely circulated, was characteristically vigorous. At 82, your energy remains undiminished. You cited figures, invoked proverbs, named factories, and challenged your critics to visit them. We accept the invitation — not physically, but forensically. …
Read More »X-ARTICLE: Kaguta, Mwenda and the brutal truth about nation-building
President Yoweri Museveni has issued a forceful response to a recent opinion piece by journalist Andrew Mwenda titled “When Old Age Strikes a Leader” (Issue No. 915, April 17–23, 2026), rejecting claims about his leadership capacity and defending his government’s economic and industrialisation agenda. In the unusually direct statement, Museveni …
Read More »Mr Mwenda, thank you for declaring me incapable of judging right
COMMENT | YOWERI K MUSEVENI | Mr. Mwenda, thank you for declaring me senile and incapable of judging right. You will, however, discover that at 82, I am still able to defend Uganda and myself with the Bible, the AK-47 and the pen. You are supposed to be a …
Read More »The paradox of Museveni’s failure
How our president greatest failure has been inability to manage his own success THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Recently, I drove to Busia, then to Bushenyi. I often drive to Gulu, Hoima and Fort Portal via Mubende. These experiences both stress and depress me. Kampala and …
Read More »When Namibia stunned me
An African country without a strong leader that has managed to avoid the pitfalls of its contemporaries THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | The Batooro have a saying: akaana katabuunga katekereza ngu nyinako nuwe acumba ebinura (a child who has not travelled thinks the mother is the best …
Read More »The quandary of de-dollarization
COMMENT | Charles Okello Ayai | This article is, in part, a response to Andrew Mwenda’s article titled “Time for Africa to wake up” in his column, The Last Word on February 14, 2025. In it, he makes what has become a popular exhortation by most who consider themselves Pan-African, namely, …
Read More »The White Man’s Burden
How the West seeks to dominate poor countries using the language of democracy and human rights THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | We return to EU ambassadors expressing concern over human rights abuses by the Uganda government at a meeting with Gen. Salim Saleh last month. The German ambassador made a …
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The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price