Decluttering the mind: Why there is need for emancipation in Uganda’s higher education
Structural enslavement of minds is, and has been, pronounced in our universities since the colonialists brought them to us. I am saying universities, but really it was one university the colonialists left for us – The University of East Africa, of which Makerere University College was a constituent College.
How poor Uganda transited from cheap slave labour to illicit hawking of body organs
The organ trade is already scaring many Ugandans, especially the poor, away from government and even private hospitals, fearing that their organs or those of their people, will be stolen from them to renew the health of the rich in Uganda and abroad. They have heard that some big people are involved in the bloody trade, and may be in league with some health personnel to steal their organs.
When he seized power in Uganda, Museveni dabbled in barter trade then commodified goods, services and relationships
Today Uganda is firmly in the armpit of the IFIs, although China has also extended its ecological footprint through loans and projects, and the country’s debt which was in billions of shillings by the time Idi Amin was toppled from power by combined Obote and Museveni forces, is now over 80 trillion shillings after 37 years of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s rule, accompanied by untold impoverishment of once prosperous indigenous communities.
Press freedom: It’s 11 years since American journalist Julian Assange began was taken in as a political prisoner
This weekend marks 11 years since Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and began his confinement as a political prisoner. The torture that he has endured is not just an attack on his rights to free expression and journalism; it is an assault on your right to be an informed citizen.
Uganda needs to match ‘environmentality’ with ‘governmentality’ for conservation to make sense
One writer has said that governmentality represents the tactics of government that allow it to define and redefine what its own competences are. Or else it refers to a complex set of processes through which human behaviour is systematically controlled, individually or in groups, to enhance the capacity of the political regime to govern.
Uganda’s greatest threat to environmental democracy will be state’s vow to arresting sterile money culture
Renewability of the environment is not inbuilt in the programmes and projects. Those supervising or implementing them are environmentally illiterate. We have seen in our lifetime the political power that be undemocratically deciding to erase whole ecosystem and habitats to replace them with extensive plantations of oil palm and sugarcane grasses.
Uganda: Once the Pearl of Africa, it’s now the altar on which politics smothers environmental democracy
Unfortunately, over most of Africa, what I have so far written is obtaining. Some rulers stick to power and rule from abroad, but when elections are held, they win by over 90 per cent of the vote even when they do not interact with the citizens. A good example is President Paul Biya of Cameroon, one of the longest ruling leaders in modern Africa.
African peace mission: One step forward in geopolitics, one step back in laying bare its underbelly?
The presence of the outgoing and current African Union chairs, Macky Sall (Senegal) and Azali Assoumani (Comoros), added political weight and legitimacy. And while the regional spread of the African states involved is commendable, why was a broader constellation of African interests not pursued?
Bigmanity: How consumptive politics feed sterile love for money, stokes violence in Uganda and Africa
Often, where there is Bigmanity, money is pursued as a culture over and above traditional cultures. It is a sterile culture of money. The culture of money in Big Man-run countries is always dirty. Money is dirty when it is sterile. Money is sterile when it is unfairly appropriated. This could be during budgeting when excessively huge monies are appropriated in ways that end up satisfying the big man’s wishes and choices that may have little to do with the country and its people. This explains why big men tend to become stinkingly rich after they have stayed in power for a very long time.
It’s unlikely bloodthirsty generals will lay down arms, Sudan needs African Union boots on the ground
The African Union (AU) established the Expanded Mechanism to connect disparate peace processes and drew up a roadmap for resolving the conflict. East Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) adopted a similar roadmap and added Ethiopia to the delegation led by Kenyan President William Ruto.
