Charles "Mase" Onyango-Obbo, also Charles Onyango Obbo, (born 1958) is a Ugandan author, journalist, and former Editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. He is a former Managing Editor of The Monitor, a daily Ugandan newspaper, former Executive Editor for the Africa and Digital Media Division with Nation Media Group. Considered one of the finest journalists in Africa, Onyango-Obbo is a political commentator on issues in East Africa and the African Great Lakes region. He writes a column, "Ear to the Ground", in The Monitor, a second column in the regional weekly The EastAfrican, and a third in the Daily Nation. Early life Born in the town of Mbale in Eastern Uganda. Onyango-Obbo studied at St. Leo’s College, Kyegobe in Fort Portal and later Makerere University in Kampala, the largest and oldest public university in Uganda, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. He later attended the American University in Cairo, where he obtained the degree of Master of Arts in journalism. In 1991, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Career In late 1997, he and Andrew Mwenda, now managing director and editor-in-chief of The Ugandan Independent news magazine, then a reporter with the Daily Monitor, were arrested and charged "publication of false news". Their arrest followed a story in which the paper quoted reports in The Indian Ocean newsletter, that Uganda had become compensated with gold by the Kinshasa government of Laurent Kabila, for its support in, along with Rwanda, in helping to oust the regime of long-term Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. They fought the case through the High Court, where their appeal was rejected; went to the Constitutional Court, where again their appeal was rejected; and eventually in 2003 won the most significant court victory for Uganda when the Uganda Supreme Court, against the state, ruled the offense of "publication of false news" to be unconstitutional. In May 1999, during the Second Congo War, Onyango-Obbo and other editors of The Monitor – Wafula Ogutu and David Ouma Balikowa – were arrested and charged with "sedition" and "publication of false news", following the publication of a photograph of a naked woman being sexually abused by men in military uniform. Ugandan officials insisted that the assailants might be soldiers from Congo or Zimbabwe (who were also involved in the Congo war), and could not possibly be Ugandan soldiers