Power makes Andrew Mwenda tick

Andrew Mwenda (R) with CDF Muhoozi Kainerugaba

Power seems to follow Andrew Mwenda everywhere.

Or perhaps, more accurately, Mwenda seems to follow power. In almost every conversation about Uganda, good, bad, and ugly, he speaks about his interventions: helping people, solving situations, making things happen.

He calls the Inspector General of Police. He calls the military intelligence. He calls the president. He intervenes between powerful people. He gets things done. And so, especially on television, opposition figures often ask him a simple question: You are acting as who?

Where do you get the power? What is the source of your authority to intervene? That question seems to touch something deeper. A man who has spent decades debating politics suddenly becomes defensive. His voice rises. His patience disappears.

Sometimes, he appears more irritated by the question of his authority than by the issue under discussion. Watch Andrew Mwenda’s latest YouTube interview with Terry Kahuma about Minister Kahinda Otafiire, and you will see almost everything I am describing.

You do not even have to listen closely. Watch the non-verbal cues: the tone, anger, impatience, and bitterness. Meanwhile, Otafiire’s offence, in Mwenda’s telling, was to publicly criticise General Muhoozi.

To him, Otafiire may advise Muhoozi, but should not publicly challenge him. The proper place for criticism is inside the room; speaking publicly crosses a line. But Otafiire has a right to speak publicly.

He is 75 years old and has spent roughly five decades in Uganda’s political and military struggles. Age has taken his physical strength, but he has his voice. He can still tell the country what he believes is right and wrong.

Yet, in Mwenda’s telling, Otafiire’s criticism sounds like something worse than disagreement. It is presented as mischief. Then comes power. Mwenda reminds everyone that he is PLU No. 002 and says they can swallow Otafiire “like a grasshopper.” The change is difficult to miss.

This is not the Mwenda many Ugandans first knew as the fearless liberal journalist, the ferocious debater who could take on anyone. Here is someone speaking with the confidence of a man who believes he has acquired power, and with little patience for those who challenge the people he has chosen to stand with.

The human rights debate makes this clearer. When confronted about abuses, Mwenda turns to whataboutism. He talks about Otafiire’s record, America, and NUP supporters who have been violent.

He sometimes acknowledges the whataboutism before proceeding to do it. None of this answers the question. Mwenda knows this. This is the same Andrew Mwenda who once stood up for minority rights when it was unpopular.

He defended gay Ugandans and challenged anti-homosexuality legislation in court. He understood that rights do not depend on whether we agree with the person exercising them.

He knows why freedom of the press matters. He understands that the abuse of power does not become acceptable because the person being abused is unpopular. It’s not that somehow Mwenda has forgotten about human rights.

It is that he cares about something else more. Mwenda has always been fascinated by power. He cultivated relationships with President Yoweri Museveni, President Paul Kagame, military officers, politicians, and intelligence sources.

His interest went beyond that of a journalist looking for sources. He wanted access, proximity, and influence. He enjoys being in the middle of fixing issues between the powerful, calling the IGP, military intelligence, and the president. He loves being at the centre of it.

Equally, he likes to talk about his role in it. His trajectory gives Kakooza Mutale vibes. Mutale was a journalist and newspaper publisher. He founded ‘The Economy’ in 1979 and used it to investigate political and economic scandals.

He was arrested during the Milton Obote II regime, and the paper eventually closed in 1982. His relationship with power would later change. He went to the bush, formed Vumbula, and joined Museveni’s NRA.

After the NRA captured power in 1986, he became a prominent political mobiliser for Museveni, especially during the 2001 general elections, when he led the Kalangala Action Plan, which unleashed untold violence against NRM political opponents.

When you think about it deeply, for some of these people, power does not change a person. It reveals what was already inside them. Perhaps some of Mwenda’s earlier battles were not only about justice, but also about power: the satisfaction of confronting those who had it and proving that he, too, could exercise power against them.

He could take on government, the anti-homosexuality mob and powerful institutions. That feeling of being powerful enough to challenge them. He is now in charge. He speaks with the confidence of someone who believes he can help decide who stays in the room and who is thrown out of it.

That is why I think we should stop looking at Andrew Mwenda simply as the liberal journalist who has lost his way, made a few bad choices, or forgotten his principles. Maybe this is not Mwenda forgetting himself.

Maybe this is Mwenda finding himself. From the moment you read this article, start paying keen attention to Mwenda, especially to nonverbal cues; you will notice that power makes Andrew Mwenda tick.

And the closer he gets to it, the less he seems able to tolerate anyone standing in his way.

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The writer is a researcher with Agora Center for Research

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