Ugandans-At-Heart

Hello UAH,

Andrew Mwenda’s article in the independent this week on the link: http://www.independent.co.ug/cover-story/4750-oil-bribery-scandal is very disappointing. He failed/ refused to establish his research/ investigation methods.  He  also failed to post copies of the said fake documents.

 He claims that  East African Development Limited  (EADL) is not registered in Nairobi but he does not state whether it was operating as a parent company or just a trading name for another company.

He also does not state who he approached to find out about the existence of such a company.

 Mwenda claims that he used  former US Secretary of state Gen. Colin Powell’s 40 to 70 percent principle which he turned into a 50 to 70 percentage of proof. But he does not acknowledge that this calculation is false because the term proof and authenticity are subjective and thus personal narratives. What appears to be authentic to him can be very false if presented to me. Just like his article looks excellent to him, to me, it is characterised by amateurishness as far as the subject he investigated is concerned in relation to how he carried out his inquiry. For example, he never exercised any sense of caution in his presentation of findings. He never used words such as “appear”, “may”, “suggests” “could be” etc. He also never invited other researchers to try and pick interest in this case so as to establish more reliable findings.

He also appears to be appealing to authority in all his arguments. This is because he keeps making reference to powerful people like Yoweri M7, Colin Powel, the police chief etc. This is wrong. Simply because Colin Powel used a certain method, it doesn’t make it right or reliable. Secondly, because a certain police chief said blah blah, it doesn’t mean that what he said was right.

One lesson that he has to learn is that whenever one starts presenting any piece of work, one must inform the reader about oneself. For example, in Mwenda’s article, he should have declared who he is in terms of profession, role, experience and what motivated him to do such an investigation. He is  also supposed to declare his biases and also state what he has done to ensure that they do not influence the outcome of his inquiry.

Mwenda can deny that he has no biases or predispositions as far as this issue is concerned but from the phenomenological point of view, researchers do hold certain beliefs/ biases before the beginning of their inquiry. Therefore, it can be argued that he had a conflict of interest and it is also possible that he wanted to save the NRM government from shame.

In a nutshell, Mwenda has no capacity and experience to carry out such an investigation. He used wrong methods and approaches. For example, he should have used private detectives with sound knowledge on fraud. But he foolishly went to M7, a person who is implicated in this saga.

He should have requested for credit reports on all people implicated in this saga so as to establish their wealth and credit history. Another most important issue is his failure to establish the underlying intent to defraud by his source, basing on his knowledge of the false nature of the documents which were handed over to him. Tell the reader why his source could risk handing over false documents to him.

Lastly, did he bother to hand over his findings to another investigator and see if he  can corroborate his findings were he to carry out a similar investigation?

I have critiqued Andrew Mwenda’s writings and I could not believe that this guy lacks adequate intelligence to even comment on less serious matters.
 
I emailed him and told him to go back to Charles Onnyango Obbo, David Ouma and Wafula Oguttu and ask for refreshers training.
 
Partly, Obbo, Wafula and Ouma are answerable for Mwenda’s deficiencies because they hiped him when he was still mentally raw and then presented him to the people of Uganda as an intellectual. But the guy’s reasoning is still totally wacky.
 
Mwenda can not function without the mentor-ship of Wafula, Obbo and Ouma.He needs to know this. Sometimes people need to know what they can realistically achieve on their own so as not to over-estimate themselves.It is up to Mwenda to do a honest reflection on his deficiencies.

RICHARD MUKASA

LONDON