THE CURIOUS CASE OF ANDREW MWENDA: From Palace Insider to Prophet of Doom
One cannot help but marvel at the irony— Andrew Mwenda, once the trumpet-blower of the regime’s triumphs, now emerges as its most melodramatic mourner. But this isn’t just the tale of a journalist turned critic.
It is the paradox of a man deeply woven into the very fabric he now claims is unraveling. Mwenda is not a distant observer; he is an actor within the very tragedy he narrates. He has flown in armoured choppers, posed in military fatigues, and publicly celebrated Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s birthdays with almost monarchical pomp.
For years, Mwenda positioned himself as a chief advisor, confidant, and ideological apologist for the First Family—particularly the President’s son. Therefore, when he laments that “the centre cannot hold,” we are compelled to ask: Which centre? The one he helped fortify?
THE FALLACY OF CONVENIENT AMNESIA
Mwenda’s newfound critique reads like a well-penned elegy for a nation he helped sedate. He fails to acknowledge his own complicity in cheering on the very dynastic drift he now decries.
It was he who tirelessly advocated for Muhoozi’s rise, dismissed critics as “naïve,” and ridiculed voices of caution about militarisation of politics. Today, he tells us that Muhoozi “pays no attention” to infrastructure or the environment.
But who helped to enthrone him into that position of privilege and command? It is intellectually dishonest for Mwenda to divorce himself from the very outcomes his political matchmaking birthed.
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE AS INTELLECTUAL EVASION
Let us be clear: the crisis of governance in Uganda is real. But Mwenda’s diagnosis is both partial and self-exonerating. He blames Museveni’s age, the decay of public spirit, and the nature of electoral democracy.
But he spares his friends. He spares Gen Muhoozi— dismissing him as “too focused on security” as if that is an excuse for being insulated from public responsibility. And he spares himself.
What Mwenda offers is a moral critique that lacks moral courage—a daring cry against impunity that trembles before naming the privileged few who wield that impunity. Worse still, he faults “the poor and uneducated” for corrupting politics, echoing colonial-era elitism that blames the governed, not the governors.
THE ARCHITECT CAN’T CLAIM TO BE JUST THE PAINTER
Mwenda has been on advisory trips, military-organised events, and in boardroom briefings where critical national decisions were discussed, if not shaped. One cannot attend the architect’s meetings, bless the blueprint, and then write columns blaming the building’s collapse.
He stood by when institutions were being personalized. He cheered as Uganda slowly veered from constitutionalism to familialism, from meritocracy to loyalty-based appointments.
Today, he laments that “everyone does as they wish” outside security. But wasn’t it Mwenda who told us Uganda needed a security-first state to ensure stability?
MORAL AWAKENING OR STRATEGIC REPOSITIONING?
This article reeks not just of despair, but of timing and rebranding. Is this the sound of a man waking up, or the shuffling of feet positioning for relevance in a post-Museveni era?
The dramatization of collapse, the sudden disavowal of the regime’s failures, and the distant tone—these are the rhetorical tools of one distancing himself from a burning house he helped build.
THE BURDEN OF COMPLICITY
Mr Mwenda’s critique is not invalid— it’s incomplete. And worse, it is morally evasive. If Uganda has indeed fallen apart, as he mournfully proclaims, then he must carry part of the blame.
Not because he ruled—but because he used his voice, platform, and intellect to justify, rationalize, and cheerlead the very rot he now critiques.
To quote Chinua Achebe, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”
But let us also add: The tragedy of Uganda is the hypocrisy of elite enablers who condemn the fire only after they’ve warmed themselves by it for years. Let us not be schooled by those who helped break the blackboard.
The author is a law professor
Thanks Prof. Lubogo.
Your rebuttal to a regime apologist, Andrew Mwenda and his split-tongue-double standard ranting is indeed a sledge hammer demolition exercise.
E.g., because the lands that were and are still being grabbed are not his; unbothered Mwenda told the whole wide world that: “Land-grabbing and corruption, is good for industrialization”.
Moreover, devoid shame one of the land grabbers was and probably still is, his corrupt sister, now State Minister of Health, Hon Muhanga, who wanted to grab UBC land in Bugolobi; and had told parliament that she borrowed from relatives and sold goats worth Shs.10 billion in order to purchase that piece of land.
In other words, because he is rabidly opportunistic like the HIV/Aids virus; socially and/or politically Mwenda has double ranted himself into an irreversible self-destruction mode.
The professor of law is spot on about Mwenda’s pretence. I would only add a challenge to Mwenda to explain to the a public about the way the present KCCA directors were appointed, what role he played in brokering a “deal” about this in a meeting that took place in the UAE, and how much money he made in that deal. Over to you Andrew.
Sheer sycophantic 🙄 hypocrisy
How brilliant this article is. Andrew Mwenda is so full of himself, and thinks his analyses of any topic are the gospel truth, simply because he is the most strident and noisiest at putting his points across. Forgetting the old adage that “empty tins make the loudest noise”. Andrew Mwenda, when this regime, that has done so much damage to this country burns, as it eventually will, my prayer is, that apologists like you, completely burn with it. Amen.
What rank does Mwenda hold in the army or should he have been arrested for disguising himself as an officer? If a red beret can send one to rot in jail then why the exception? Oh I understand he is a member of the family
My short comment is that there is currently a policy to reproduce and consolidate the forces of privilege and Mwenda is the high priest of privileged forces.
For those who have eyes and senses, Mwenda is jumping ship and angling for the next vessel to the promised land. Take heed and follow his lead.