By Lawel Muhwezi
Three decades later, it is telling that at Makerere University, political parties have been abolished, physical campaigns and voting banned, dissenting lecturers forced to leave, and students suspended for merely holding gatherings including digital meetings.
The bodies that used to push back against these excesses like MUASA and the Students Guild have been weakened or compromised. There has been relative peace or absence of strikes at Makerere since the new order that followed Bewatte’s death. Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe’s strict way of handling what he calls hooliganism is largely credited. But the reasons for which students and staff often carried out strikes have never gone away. Government student allowances still take a long to arrive and students are banned from holding physical campaigns. The University’s top management keeps coming for some more, from students to non-academic and academic staff, and now to even top management colleagues and the very core of academic freedom.
A new low was registered in May 2024. The Vice Chancellor directed an inquiry into a paper set by lecturers at the School of Law and suspended the Dean’s forum pending establishing its legality. The exam challenged first-year law students on current affairs through a satirical essay depicting Speaker Anita Among responding to recent UK government sanctions.
The parody included clauses from a fictitious bill, such as a ban on adverse comments about the Speaker of Parliament, particularly regarding Among, and granting the Speaker authority to recommend individuals for prosecution to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The students were tasked with discussing all the constitutional law issues raised in the fictitious essay and critically assessing the implications of the directives, such as those from the President, on the rule of law, democratic governance, and constitutionalism.
Edwin Karugire, the President’s son-law, who holds the powerful position of chairperson, Appointments Committee, pushed for the writing of the letter directing the inquiry, an insider told me. In the Council WhatsApp forum, Karugire insisted that such exams were unwelcome, despite resistance from other council members such as Diana Ahumuza, Kamunyu Deus, and members of top management including surprisingly, the Vice Chancellor Prof. Nawangwe.
But the Vice-chancellor finally bowed to the pressure and the letter was released. While the University’s top management had harassed lecturers speaking up about the inefficiencies at the University, seeking to censure what lecturers do in the classroom had been unheard of. Prof Jude Sempebwa pointed out that the querying the paper set by the lecturers in the first place, in and of itself was an attack on the credibility of the lecturers that set the paper.
Then top management suspended the Deans’ Forum. “Pending resolution of the legality of this forum, all activities of the Forum are hereby suspended,” partly read the Vice Chancellor’s memo suspending the forum. The communication was passed on directly to the rest of the Deans Forum. The Vice Chancellor who launched the forum himself was now suspending it on grounds of its “legality”.
The Dean’s Forum is an association of Dean from the 29 schools, this is a borrowed practice from other large Universities. It provides a platform for Heads of Schools to coordinate multidisciplinary and cross-cutting academic business. Strategically, the Forum forms a large share of the University’s Senate.
One of the Deans says the suspension was politically motivated. Apart from the fact that the legal status of the Forum was not an issue when it was first established, article 29 of the constitution gives the Deans and any other Ugandan the right to associate.
The suspension of the Forum also came after the Senate voted Prof Anthony Mugisha as the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration (DVC F & A). Management’s preferred candidate, Prof Henry Alinaitwe was defeated. Prof Alinaitwe has been the acting DVC F & A. Prof Anthony Mugisha is the one who petitioned the Prof William Bazeyo out of office to render the position vacant.
The position of Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs is the next. The position has since fallen vacant following the end of Prof Umar Kakumba’s first term of office. Prof Kakumba has been the Patron of the Dean’s Forum. He enjoys massive support from the Forum. Many believe that the forum was disbanded to undermine his support in the Senate.
Suspicions are rife that both the government and the Vice chancellor want Prof Kabumba out of office. His reappointment is opposed at that level. In the last council meeting, the committee charged with providing a report to guide his reappointment, presented appraisal marks below the pass mark. It turned out that marks had been picked from an incomplete appraisal process.
The report did not contain his previous appraisals from his direct supervisor, the Vice Chancellor. This infuriated the rest of the Council members who dismissed the report, calling it malicious and below the integrity standards of the Council. Some of the members of the Council claim they had accessed the real appraisal scores that had not been included in the report.
The committee charged with the reappointment of the Deputy Vice Chancellor is comprised of the chairperson of the Appointments Committee, Edwin Karugire, the chairperson of the University Council, Lorna Magara, the vice chairperson of the University Council, Dan Kidega, and the direct supervisor, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe. These are the people that came up with the controversial report.
According to the University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, section 32 (2), upon completion of the first term, the Deputy Vice Chancellors are eligible for reappointment by the University Council, a similar provision exists for the Vice Chancellor under section 31, and it is the very basis upon which Prof Nawangwe was reappointed. It is still unclear why Prof Umar Kakumba is facing a different fate.
Insiders claim that part of the opposition against Kabumba has to do with his religious affiliation—he is Muslim. Apparently, they fear that if Prof. Kakumba is reappointed to the DVC Academics office, he stands the highest chance to replace Prof. Nawangwe, whose term is soon expiring. Prof. Kabumba already enjoys massive support in the University Senate and the University Council too. Indeed, there are reports that top Muslim clerics have visited President Museveni to express their discontentment.
Prof. Kakumba is also popular amongst students, having opposed the suspension of the Students Guild and the banning of political parties. As a former student leader and pro-dialogue administrator, he enjoys massive support from the rest of the university community.
In a recent case, July 4, 2024 , Makerere University was ordered to pay shs 100 million in damages for the unfair and unwarranted denial of a post-retirement contract to Prof John Jean Barya. While a section of the staff led by the academic staff association and the students were opposed to the management conduct of business in May 2020, the University decided to punish Prof. Barya who was vocal at the time, by not renewing his contract. He had fulfilled all the requirements as per the human resource manual and recommendations from the school of law.
This, some say, is an example of the weaponization of contracts that has since become commonplace. Many lecturers even at the Professorship level fear to speak up, afraid of losing their jobs and other entitlements. A toxic combination of self-censorship, a silenced feedback system, and a disgruntled academy resigned to poor conditions of work, has been the consequence.
Some insiders say this partly explains the Deja Vu situation, where lecturers are on an exodus to other academic institutions in the region and on the continent at the earliest opportunity.
A high-ranking member of the University observed that a major consequence of the current situation of both the self-censored lecturers and gagged students, is a graduate incapable of expression and questioning.
One of the causes of all this, some say, is the membership of the first family on the University Council, the top governing body of the University. Alionzi, a University Council member at the time Karugire joined the Council, recounted the experience and the change in dynamics in the Council room. He noted, for example, that whenever Karugire made a submission, almost everyone toed his line of argument including those that had earlier submitted different positions because everyone believed that he represented the voice of his mother-in-law, Janet Museveni, who is also the Minister of Education and President Museveni’s wife, and or the President, even if he was giving his individual opinion. Some of the Council members are public servants, who never wanted to cross his path because the fate of their jobs was in his hands, or they felt so.
Karugire was appointed chairperson of the University Appointments Committee just one week after his confirmation as a member of the University Council. Some like Alionzi felt that the position needed someone with experience in the University setting. Additionally, the chairperson of the University Council, Lorna Magara, is a sister to Allen Kagina, and has known ties to the first lady. Given these powerful positions, many feel that the interests of government, which are not always congruent with those of the other stakeholders including the public, will always carry the day. The recent incident of inquiring into the constitutional law exam is a classic example.
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