Andrew Mwenda
Andrew Mwenda (born 1972) is a Ugandan print, radio and television journalist, and the founder and owner of "The Independent", a current affairs newsmagazine. He was previously the political editor of "The Daily Monitor", a Ugandan daily newspaper, and was the presenter of Andrew Mwenda Live on KFM Radio in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. Background and education. Mwenda was born in 1972 in Fort Portal, Kabarole District, in the Western Region of Uganda. His father is "Mzee Phillip Muhanga" of Fort Portal. Mwenda is a younger brother to Major General Kayanja Muhanga, a senior UPDF military officer . After attending primary school locally, Mwenda entered Nyakasura School where he completed his O-Level studies. He was then admitted to Busoga College Mwiri in the Eastern Region of Uganda for his A-Level education. He graduated with a High School Diploma from Mwiri. He was admitted to Makerere University, Uganda's oldest and largest public university, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Later, he won a Chevening Scholarship and was admitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in Development Studies . He was a visiting fellow at Yale University, in 2010. He also studied as a fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford in 2009. Mwenda was a John Knight Fellow at Stanford University between 2006 and 2007. He was a visiting lecturer at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in 2005, and a visiting fellow at the Africa Study Centre of the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands in 2003. In 2005, he was among sixteen senior journalists invited by the British government to discuss with Prime Minister Tony Blair the forthcoming report of the Commission for Africa . Work history. Mwenda is the managing director of "Independent Publications Limited", the publishers of "The Independent", a current affairs newsmagazine. An admirer of Socrates, Karl Popper, and Frederick Von Hayek, he is an activist, a journalist, a columnist, a part-time poet, a businessman, and a social entrepreneur. Mwenda is a recognised African voice in the global debate on the failures of foreign aid to Africa and the need for investment and trade as drivers of growth. A TED speaker, he is a regular speaker at conferences across the world. Mwenda worked as a political editor of the "Daily Monitor  and general manager of its affiliate on FM radio, KFM, before establishing The Independent" in 2007. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, and Transparency International. He has also written for international news media like "Der Spiegel", the "International Herald Tribune", "The New York Times", and "Foreign Policy". He also has produced documentaries for BBC World television and radio. Mwenda has also authored and co-authored articles for international academic journals like "Africa Affairs", the "Journal of Modern African Studies", the "Review of African Political Economy", the "Journal of Commonwealth Studies", the "Journal  for Contemporary African Studies", and the "Journal of Democracy" on top of publishing chapters in several books. In April 2008, he was arrested and released on bail by the Ugandan government for "being in possession of seditious material and of publishing inflammatory articles". In August 2005, he was charged with sedition for broadcasting a discussion of the cause of death of Sudanese vice-president John Garang. Garang was killed when the Ugandan presidential helicopter smashed in a storm over a rebel area, on the way back from talks in Uganda. During his radio programme, the journalist accused the Ugandan government  of "incompetence" and said they had put Garang on "a junk helicopter ... at night ... in poor weather ... over an insecure area". Community activism. In July 2006, Mwenda appeared before the British House of Commons committee on Global Poverty to testify against aid to Africa. He has written widely on the effects of aid on the development process in Africa and been published in such prestigious newspapers as the "International Herald Tribune" and "Der Spiegel" and done radio and television documentaries for the BBC on this subject. Mr. Mwenda has also been widely quoted in international media, including the BBC, CNN , "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", "The Times", "The Economist", and many other newspapers, radio and television networks in Europe and North America. He has criticised aid agencies and charities for what he says is their ineffectiveness and collusion with corruption. He believes that western aid has been largely unhelpful for African development, since it encourages dependency, sustains wars and fuels corrupt states. He argues that aid goes to the least deserving states, those that have failed their people, rather than those that have reformed. In June 2007, he gave a speech about these issues at the TED conference  in Arusha, Tanzania. In 2014, Mwenda was among the petitioners for annulling The Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014. On 3 February 2019, Mwenda launched the Uganda National Peoples' Democratic Revolutionary Front (UNPDRF) in the bushes of Kanyandahi in western Uganda with six men and five sticks. He declared himself supreme shogun of the UNPDRF and Charles Onyango Obbo its chief ideologue. On social media, he declared that the cause of the UNPDRF was "battle Museveni's corrupt dictatorship, Besigye's radical extremism and Bobi Wine's empty-headed demagoguery." The UNPDRF shares a similar name with a left wing political  coalition in Ethiopia, The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)led by Ethiopian prime minister Ahmed Abiy, but it is unlikely that the UNPDRF is supported or associated to the EPRDF. Awards. Mwenda won the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards in 2008 sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists, "in tribute to his commitment to a free press in Uganda and the whole world".