COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Prime Minister Robbinah Nabbanja is onto something. A brilliant idea to lift Uganda’s dysfunctional service delivery off the floor where it resides in chronic malaise. The crux of Nabbanja’s idea entails that for service delivery to improve, civil servants should be direct beneficiaries of that service. …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | A worrying trend is upon us. Flammable snowflake leaders have made a mockery of shame. Shame no longer lives here. Instead, brazen impunity parades its wares. Consider these three exhibits. Exhibit 1: The Uganda Media Council is responsible for regulating media as mandated by the Press and …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | “I think of you as the freest person I know…Then everyone you know is a slave.”This haunting line is from the Ayi Kwei Armah’s classic book, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, on the failure of post- independence African leaders. Enter Sam Mugumya. In 2014, …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Lately, homosexuality in a hostile takeover has grabbed our social media feeds and news headlines. The news headlines must be grateful for the break. Now we do not have to hear about corruption, unbridled ineptitude, and torture nio nio nio. We Ugandans of upright standing and …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | The headline that Thursday morning was equivalent to ‘Man Bites Dog.’ Trending across multiple news feeds was the brutal arrest of torture survivors outside the offices of the national human rights institution. On February 9, five members of the Torture Survivors Movement Uganda attempted to deliver …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | It is now a year since a firestorm erupted in the wake of writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s torture ordeal in state custody. In December 2021, state agents broke into Kakwenza’s home, abducting him. In early January 2022, court ordered police to release Kakwenza – the police did …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | In recent days, yet another embarrassing video of a geriatric African president failing spectacularly trended online – 89-year-old Cameroonian president Paul Biya lost his marbles for an excruciating three minutes during the December 2022 USA-Africa Summit. In the video, he farts, looks around seemingly unaware that …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | In the run-up to the 2021 Uganda presidential elections, as tensions ratcheted up, a battle-hardened journalist friend asked a French diplomat his thoughts on the growing tensions. The French diplomat calmly responded: “I hold a French passport. I will leave for the airport and …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Member of Parliament (MP) Francis Zaake is back in the news – not for his cherubic cheeks and twinkling eyes. Rather, for being the wild man of parliament, again. Zaake buzzes with youthful swagger. A restless energy afflicts him. For a while, state-sponsored harassment was Zaake’s …
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COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | “The rights of our people are supreme, and can never be compromised, and full accountability must be there…,” said President Yoweri Museveni on August 11 at the swearing-in of 16 newly-appointed judges. Such fine words from the fountain of honour on the privilege of being …
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The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price