Bwaya was Makerere’s first female guild president

She might have headed the university guild, but Bwaya’s interest was more in leadership than politics, so, she did not continue with politics. PHOTO BY RACHEL AJWANG.

What you need to know:

Although she opened the door for female guild presidents at Makerere University, the next female guild president after Bwaya came a whole 10 years later.

While many feared and others insulted her, this did not scare her from trying. Her thirst and personal drive to test fresh waters was all she needed to make a mark, perhaps history and legacy at Makerere University.

At 22, Norah Njuba Bwaya became the first female guild president of Makerere University in 1987, a time when the women in leadership and big offices in this country were still countable. Her Bachelor of Commerce class had only five girls out of 30 students. But not even this could cripple her ambition. Her election was no mean feat, but that’s not why she attracted attention from students. It was her gender.

Bwaya mounted a challenging but successful campaign that saw her clinch the post of first female guild president of Uganda’s oldest university. Ironically, she started her university education at University of Papua, New Guinea where she studied for a year while her parents, Sam (RIP) and Gertrude Njuba, were in exile from 1983-1986. It was during the year she studied there that she first tasted power as the leader of foreign students association.

But this was only for a short time before her parents returned to Uganda when President Museveni took over political power in 1986. Bwaya returned with her parents and enrolled at Makerere University as a first year Bachelor of Commerce student.

Bwaya’s inspirations
Political background
Coming from a political family and seeing her parents run into exile had raised many questions in her young mind. “I always wondered why my parents were being hunted. ‘Why is the country like this?’” she recounts. Bwaya says she also learnt a lot from her parents and the numerous political discussions she eavesdropped at home.

Life in exile
Most importantly, she says she was molded by the challenging time she endured during their life in exile. At that time, she was only 16 years and her parents never wanted to interrupt her secondary education. It was until she completed secondary school that she followed her parents in exile.

In the meantime, she was left behind in Kampala with four younger siblings to take care of. While her friends played, for two years Bwaya stayed home, preparing meals and keeping the house, an experience she says changed her perception of life. “It helped me think about things beyond my age like our survival,” Bwaya explains.

Birth of a dream
During her second year, curiosity took the better of her and she convinced friends to seek out the guild president at the time to find out how one became guild president. “We asked Semayizi Mugabe, the then guild president, many questions including what it takes to become a guild president. When he finally asked us who among us was interested in the position, I said it was I, to which he responded; ‘You? A woman?’” she recounts. “From the look on his face, you could see that he was surprised,”

This doubt in her abilities on account of her gender seemed to only fuel her zeal to prove everyone wrong. “If they think a woman can’t stand for this post, I will stand for the post, just to disqualify this myth,” she silently vowed.

Hence started a campaign to see her in office. Word started and spread from her small class to the rest of the university that there was a girl vying for the highest student office on campus. This made news in itself and many other students wanted to know who this girl was. At home, her mother gave her a car in support of her bid. “I could have been the first guild president to have a vehicle in Makerere University too,” Bwaya says, laughing.

She, however, says even if she had not won, mere contesting for the post of a guild president was an achievement to her because no girl had attempted the challenge before. “The campaigns were not easy. I was so intimidated and abused, especially for wearing trousers,” she shares. Fortunately, it all paid off because she won.

The mark of her tenure
As was the norm at the time, she had to decide on whether to take a dead year to focus on her leadership role, or to do books and leadership concurrently. She opted to do them both. Her ambition was to ensure they have the best year in leadership and avoid strikes which had dominated the previous years. However, the guild president’s office was located in Nkurumah Hall, a boy’s hall of residence, so space had to be created in Africa Hall for her guild office. Now work could begin.

During her tenure, they reinstated the guild canteen, which had been halted in the previous year due to mismanagement. She also helped rejuvenate the University Students’ Union reputation, which had faded due to neglect by prior management.

Makerere University rejoined the International University students’ union, a students’ body, in which students from various universities would meet to share and discuss ideas, and Makerere had not been participating in this for some time. Also, for the first time, the guild president account was opened.

“All this was possible because the university management had confidence in our government,” she says. Unlike the previous guild leaderships which were characterised by student strikes, Makerere University did not experience any strike during Bwaya’s reign, and this became the achievement of her tenure that she celebrates the most. She was replaced by Andrew Kasura in 1988/89.

Makerere University would next see a female guild president, Sarah Kagingo, in 1997/98, 10 years after Bwaya’s reign. Anna Adeke, the most recent 2013/14 female guild, caused alot of excitement. A clear demonstration that Bwaya’s victory in the 1980s was no mean victory.