/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/878504/-/xhb41e/-/index.html http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/Kony+has+survived+for+25+years+by+stealing+Museveni+s+secrets/-/878504/1411184/-/7nm435z/-/index.html The recent capture of a Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Caesar Acellam by the UPDF in the Central African Republic, has raised the possibility that the Horror Chief Joseph Kony himself, might soon be nabbed. That might well be the case, but the question needs to be asked; “why has Kony survived so long?” There are many old arguments around, but I am more attracted to something else about Kony and the LRA. They are similar to the NRM in their longevity. 2012-05-22T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/Let+rich+water+and+grass+investors+solve+mess/-/878504/1406350/-/20fa67z/-/index.html So, for the nth time, a few days ago Kenyan Turkana crossed the border and stole cattle from our Dodoth in Karamoja.Kenya security forces recovered 30 herds of the cattle and two Ugandans were killed in the raid. Sometimes, it is our people who cross into Kenya to rustle cattle. This has been going on for, well, for over 100 years. 2012-05-15T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/Uganda+oil+and+Congo+problem+we+are+losing+our+lottery+ticket/-/878504/1402096/-/3bpte4/-/index.html In early 2006, Uganda announced the discovery of rich oil fields to the beat of drums and sound of trumpets. Immediately, many people said Uganda, with its epic levels of corruption, was going to fall in the deep abyss of the “oil curse”. That we would stop doing all other work, and kill ourselves fighting over oil revenues. 2012-05-08T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1397542/-/icwaw5/-/index.html On my first lunch at the Amisom headquarters mess in Mogadishu, I sat at a table with Lt. Col. Kamurari Katwekyeire. The bespectacled and amiable Kamurari looks like a communist party official who is uncomfortable in uniform. He most definitely did not look like an outside-the-box kind of guy. Kamurari is an officer of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), and the coordinator of civil-military affairs for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (Amisom). Kamurari in most of our Ugandan languages is “red chilly pepper”, so it is his name, rather than his appearances, that reveals what kind of man he is. 2012-05-01T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1392934/-/icswfa/-/index.html There are many who are worried that the fact that Kibaki is stepping down, and therefore there will be no incumbent, will plunge Kenya into a more widespread violence than in early 2007 after he was re-elected into a hotly contested and disputed election. The economies of Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and regions like northern Tanzania and eastern DR Congo were severely disrupted by the violence as their main export and import route was cut off by the violence. Not surprisingly, Uganda has been observing the acrimonious early campaigns in Kenya, and this time Kampala has started to work on Plan B fairly early. 2012-04-24T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1388262/-/icbe1e/-/index.html Physicist Stephen Hawking, one of the cleverest living people-- the man solved many secrets of the universe-- made a surprising admission in January. 2012-04-17T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1383672/-/ic80l9/-/index.html So the Uganda government has banned Activists for Change (A4C), that group that was behind the walk-to-work protests that we have seen over the last 12 months. A lot has been said about the ban, including the fact that it is meaningless since A4C was not a formally registered organisation, so proscribing it doesn’t make a difference. And, inevitably, that this marks a new stage in the growing repression of President Museveni’s government. 2012-04-10T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1379378/-/ibpk9r/-/index.html The April 2 edition of Daily Monitor was produced as just another regular issue of the paper. Nothing special. To me, though, it was one of the most extraordinary because it told a very profound story about Uganda. 2012-04-03T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1374698/-/ibm632/-/index.html I, therefore, think a post-Museveni/NRM Uganda will be a highly devolved system. I don’t see that freed from a fierce army and a ham-fisted ruling party at the centre, any part of Uganda will accept that a president in Kampala who is not from their district (indeed even village) can ever share with them national treasures fairly. The NRM is probably the last powerful central government Uganda will see, and the UPDF and Police, the last powerful such security organisations we shall have. 2012-03-27T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1370110/-/ibj9nr/-/index.html The most tired and small-minded joke on Makerere Hill for years is that MDD stands for Musiru Dala Dala (he/she is very stupid). However, MDD is the only course at Makerere that teaches you to be what you learn. You learn to act, and you act. You learn to sing, and you sing. You can study to be a doctor, but you need someone else, a patient, for you to be a doctor. You can study to be a lawyer, but you need a criminal, crook or a journalist in trouble on the other side for you to be a lawyer. No one will pay to watch you being a lawyer, doctor, engineer, or teacher. But people will pay to watch you sing or act. 2012-03-20T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1365566/-/ib1amq/-/index.html The criticisms have also come in hard and fast. There is the inevitable one that Russell and Invisible Children are just another bunch of mzungu opportunists trying to hijack an African cause, and using our pain to make money. That they are another bunch of Westerners who think Africans are pitiful people who need to be saved – by the West. 2012-03-13T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1360548/-/iawt06/-/index.html For over two years, Uganda has been trapped in succession and, now, oil politics. Having changed the Constitution in 2005 to scrap term limits, President Museveni has to fight harder each year to justify why he should continue staying in power. 2012-03-06T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1355468/-/iaepy1/-/index.html First, let me declare a conflict of interest here. Central Bank governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile used to be my friend (“used to be”, because ever since I left Uganda, we have not been in touch). 2012-02-28T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1332086/-/i94h4r/-/index.html What is left is for me as a patriotic Ugandan, to contribute my two cents on the challenges of long rule. I suspect the President is fully aware that the last years of a long-reigning ruler are usually the most difficult. 2012-02-21T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1327570/-/i8lipj/-/index.html I think we have now got a glimpse of Uganda’s oil future – and it is a scary one. In the last seven or so months, the country has argued and fought over oil (of which a commercial drop has not yet flowed), than it has done over presidential term limits over the seven years since they were scrapped. 2012-02-14T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1322062/-/i8hx6k/-/index.html Bill Gates, looking like a shy new school headmaster, once determined what happened in the computer world everywhere on earth; now he has had a second bite at the cherry, and occupies the same position on matters of health and food. It was almost incomprehensible to me that one man, and one company, for such a long time was a key player in globalisation. Then we drove by the Boeing plant, and there was a company that accounts easily for half of the planes used by commercial carriers in the world. I realised that perhaps we have not even began to understand how globalisation happens. What was clearer is that we humans, either as individuals, have so much power and ability to impact the world – just that, again, we don’t fully comprehend how much. 2012-02-07T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1317446/-/i7yxya/-/index.html Unless you have been living under a rock on the moon, you know that the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Uganda unleashed easily the biggest corruption binge in the country’s history. Now try and imagine an oil-rich Uganda spending big to prepare an African Cup of Nations tournament. Not only would we have a disaster, but also if the tensions from Chogm eating are anything to go by, we could probably have a civil war over the contracts. 2012-01-31T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1313114/-/i7w49i/-/index.html Yet another mysterious “brutal” paramilitary force has emerged on the scene. Last week, the “brawny commandos”, as Sunday Monitor called them, were deployed in a special police van to trail and arrest opposition Forum for Democratic Change leader Kizza Besigye. 2012-01-24T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1309056/-/i7epld/-/index.html The Walk-to-Work (W2W) campaigns were called over high cost of living, and corruption in government. The State beat and shot it down, and jailed its leaders. 2012-01-17T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1303186/-/i7akjg/-/index.html I pondered what might be a good title. It was tempting to think of things like “50 Lost Years”, “50 Years of Tears”, “50 Bitter And Sweet Years” and so on. Then I fell into it. A pothole! Except perhaps for the first eight years of independence, the most constant experience in most of the last 50 years has been the pothole. So for a moment it seemed a title like “From Pothole to Pothole; Uganda’s 50 Years Journey”, might do the job. 2012-01-10T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1299668/-/hsuyn5/-/index.html Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi survived a concerted onslaught for allegedly eating an oil bribe in 2011, and survived. Others like former Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, and Minister of State for Labour Mwesigwa Rukutana cut their losses .. 2012-01-03T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1296150/-/hssrq8/-/index.html Last Friday President Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame were at the two countries Katuna border point. According to the Uganda media, they commissioned the reconstruction of the “Mbarara-Katuna” road. 2011-12-27T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1292878/-/hsq60q/-/index.html Christmas is here, and in the spirit of the season, we need to find some good news to end the year with. The growth of corruption in Uganda has been both terrifying – and impressive. 2011-12-20T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1288942/-/hs8sq3/-/index.html Ghost soldiers, stolen GAVI funds, the scramble to “eat” during Chogm, alleged bribes in oil contracts, theft in the national ID project, someone carrying away masts at the state broadcaster UBC and flogging its land, the list is endless. 2011-12-13T21:00:00Z http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/1285190/-/hs6jma/-/index.html A few weeks ago, a good source in Kampala told me that a campaign to win all-records-breaking 7th term for President Yoweri Museveni in 2016 was fully underway. 2011-12-06T21:00:00Z