Uganda, March 24 -- Journalist Andrew Mwenda's article 'Government by loot' in The Independent was well reasoned. I nodded my head throughout the piece like I was listening to my favourite song, Rest of the Night by Natalie Cole.

Beyond the musicality of his rationality though, Mwenda's arguments became contradictory in the last paragraph.

"Over the last 30 years of increasing political contestations in Uganda, we have witnessed the progressive attrition of public-spirited persons in our politics. In their place we have seen the gradual and consistent growth in the share of crooks elected to public office. This is the more intriguing because Uganda has a very high anti-incumbency bias. Only 30 percent of incumbent MPs get re-elected. In...