Makerere University Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe. PHOTO/FILE
The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, recently took to social media to dismiss claims that he did not have the required qualifications to merit the title of a professor or appointment to the office of vice chancellor.
That was in response to accusations that had earlier done the rounds on the platforms, suggesting that he did not have the minimum 10 publications required when he was named a professor, which would inevitably call into question his eligibility for the office of vice chancellor.
If what he posted is anything to by, he believes that questions about his qualifications are aimed at derailing him.
“I hope this will put a stop to the debate that is clearly designed to intimidate me to abandon my mission of eliminating hooliganism at the top Black university on earth and spurring her growth into a formidable research and professionally managed institution,” he wrote.
Questions
It has always been difficult to understand what it is that constitutes hooliganism to Prof Nawangwe, but what is known as free speech to others might just come across as hooliganism to him.
“Carrying tree branches and shouting obscenities cannot be free speech. It is just hooliganism, period,” Prof Nawangwe told Sunday Monitor.
That is partially in agreement with Google’s English dictionary, which is provided by Oxford Languages, which describes hooliganism as “violent or rowdy behaviour by young troublemakers.”
However, coming at a time when Prof Nawangwe’s qualifications are the subject of debate, some consider his approach an indication that the rumours around his qualifications should not be swept under the carpet.
“I am not very sure he went through a university. If he did then it must have been a very different kind of university,” says Mr Charles Rwomushana, a former guild president at the prestigious institution who also helped with the founding of what was known as the Makerere University Needy Students' Association.
Prof Nawangwe said in his recent post that he had left Makerere University in 1976 for “political reasons” for Kiev Institute of Civil Engineering where he obtained a Master of Science Degree in Architecture and later a Doctorate in the same field.
At the time Prof Nawangwe attended the university based in Ukraine, Ukraine which is now an independent state, was part of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The USSR was a totalitarian state where individual liberties like free speech were never enjoyed, not even in institutions of higher learning. Dissent was heavily punished. Might that experience have had a bearing on his views and approach to managing divergent views at the university? It would seem so.
On August 13, 2019, for example, he directed that Dr Edward Nector Mwavu, who was the vice chairperson of the Makerere University Staff Association (MUASA), and Mr Bennet Magara, who was the chairperson of the Makerere Administrative Staff Association (MASA) be removed from the university’s webmail list. The directive was in line with what had become a standard practice – removing “big-headed” members of staff from the mailing list.
President Museveni and first lady Janet Museveni, who is also the education minister, arrive at Makerere University for the installation of Vice Chancellor Dr Crispus Kiyonga and the opening of the rebuilt Ivory Tower on October 2, 2024. PHOTO/HANDOUT
Prof Nawangwe accused Dr Mwavu and Mr Magara of misusing the platform and contravening sections of the university’s communication policy.
The duo wrote back on August 19 requesting Prof Nawangwe to educate them on how they had misused the platform. They also requested him to tell them the specific provisions of the communication policy that they had violated. Prof Nawangwe did not respond.
It was not clear whether Dr Magara was reinstated, but Sunday Monitor has since established that Dr Mwavu, whose tenure as vice chairperson of MUASA has since ended, has never been reinstated.
Mistaken?
Some voices now argue that if it is true that he was ever in Makerere, his stay was too short-lived for him to have fully appreciated the culture of the university, which he is now mistaking for hooliganism.
“I do not know what his description of hooliganism is because disagreements and rivalries between halls of residences are like rivalries that we have in tribes, clans and communities. Halls of residence are like communities. That is why halls of residence have cultures. Those who framed these things knew what they were doing,” argues Rwomushana.
Mr Rwomushana says it is because students were taught to engage in intellectual battles that disagreements never translated into physical altercations, the penalty for which would be dismissal.
Mr Joseph Ssewungu, the Kalungu West legislator, who is also the shadow minister for Education and Sports, accuses Prof Nawangwe of using the so-called fight against hooliganism as a smokescreen in a wider agenda aimed at appeasing the powers that be.
“Remember that the State, Gen Museveni and his government are tired of demonstrations at the university, and they are running the institution under some sort of military regime. So what the vice chancellor is doing is to use the mechanism of government. He is using the police at the university to make the students vulnerable. They cannot fight for their rights,” Mr Ssewungu says.
Effective?
Whether the mission is self-arrogated or is one that he was assigned we might never know, but Prof Nawangwe has always expressed a determination "to restore total sanity and respect for our premier university” and that he would not tolerate students and members of staff who had “made hooliganism and disruption of university activities a hobby”.
That seemed to have called for some drastic measures. Since September 2017 when he was named vice chancellor, the university has suspended many more students than all his 10 predecessors ever did.
Ten students were on suspension as of November 2019. The number had more than quadrupled by the end of March 2022 when the institution suspended 24 students in one month for allegedly participating in acts of hooliganism.
“By engaging in these acts, you and other students were identified in these violent clashes contrary to the university students’ regulations. These acts include engaging in hooliganism, mounting roadblocks on campus, throwing stones at buildings and setting fire to signposts and roads,” wrote the acting Vice Chancellor, Prof Henry Arinaitwe, in the March 9, 2022, letter.
Academics on the radar
It has not been the student community alone that has been feeling the heat. His relationship with the leadership of the MUASA and MASA has always been frosty.
The battle lines were reportedly drawn when MUASA and MASA questioned alleged illegal recruitments, appointments and promotions; irregular amendment to the university’s human resource manual and alleged grabbing of some of the university land by officials who were meant to be protecting it.
The first casualties of the face-off were 45 members of staff whose services were terminated for various reasons. Most of them cried foul, accusing the administration of a witch hunt. Some of them appealed to the Staff Appeals Tribunal, while others ran to court.
The battle between Prof Nawangwe and the former chairperson of MUASA, Dr Deus Kamunyu Muhwezi, has been raging for more than six years now. Dr Kamunyu was suspended on January 19, 2019, for alleged misconduct and making false statements.
Before that, Mr Bennet Magara, and Mr Joseph Kalema, the administrative secretary of MASA, were suspended on December 21, 2018, for allegedly trying to interfere with the proceedings of the University Council.
The problem though, was that the trio was suspended in their individual capacities as employees of the university, yet the “crimes” they had been accused of had been committed in their capacities as leaders of the two unions. That amounted to violation of their rights to freedoms of association and speech.
Little wonder that the decisions were rescinded by the university’s appointments board.
The battle with Dr Kamunyu continues unabated. On February this year, Dr Kamunyu who has since become a member of the University’s Council was controversially interdicted to allegedly pave way for an investigation into his employment history including dismissals from Makerere University Business School (Mubs) and Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). The interdiction was lifted two days later.
Approved?
Whereas Prof Nawangwe’s methods of work have always been the subject of intense criticism, it would appear that they have been devastatingly effective, at least until now.
Even amid the tumultuous and unease caused by his erratic methods, one should give it to him that the university has in recent times not seen much in terms of student unrest or strike action by members of the academic and non-teaching staff.
Mr Museveni also approves of his methods. On January 15, 2019, Mr Museveni while speaking at the university’s 69th graduation ceremony lavished praise on him for “being decisive in terms of disciplining lecturers and staff”.
Not everyone will agree with Mr Museveni though, especially regarding how students are being managed.
A man walks past the reconstructed Makerere University iconic building, popularly known as the Ivory Tower on July 30, 2024. PHOTO/STEPHEN OTAGE
Mr Ssewungu accuses Prof Nawangwe of running the institution like “a kiosk”. He argues that the situation has resulted in encroachment on individual freedoms, including the right to free speech and expression.
“You cannot run a university like a nursery school where you have to control children all the time. It is like the students are still in O-Level or some boarding school yet someone would have expected them to be enjoying certain rights and freedoms that come with being at university. They cannot, for example, go to the freedom square and freely demonstrate from there,” Mr Ssewungu says.
Prof Nawangwe is, however, unapologetic.
“Those claiming that free speech has been suffocated are politicians who thrived on hooliganism. I am sorry, but those days are gone,” he tells Sunday Monitor.
Mr Rwomushana sees things a bit differently, he argues that aspects of behaviour at the universities are either indicative of what the person will be after university or prepare them for management of life, including emotions once they are outside the learning environment.
He recalls an incident during his tenure as guild president when students refused to be checked ahead of a function presided over by President Museveni. Their argument was that Makerere was an independent state which could not let the army of a neighbouring state take over its security.
“The President came, laughed about it and told them to allow us to enter. I remember that some of the students were putting on military fatigues and armed with toy pistols. Some of them have since become police officers while others are Generals. You see there is no way a student will put on a uniform, hold a toy pistol and salute unless they have the character of a soldier,” Mr Rwomushana says.
At what cost?
Whereas Prof Nawangwe seems to be chest-thumping, believing that he has stumped out “hooliganism”, the question now is how much the fight against it has exacted on a university, once known as a vibrant pillar of free speech and intellectualism.
Mr Ssewungu thinks that Prof Nawangwe’s approach to management has taken the potency out of the guild leadership at the university with an increasing unlikelihood that the university will be producing more of the likes of leaders like Mr Nobert Mao, the minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, the late Noble Mayombo, Ms Sarah Kagingo, Morris Kibalya and others who have served in different leadership capacities at the university and gone on to play key roles in politics and government.
Demise of intellectualism?
The biggest worry though, is that the very identity of the university is at stake. Mr Rwomushana thinks that the intellectualism with which it has always been associated is dying out.
The days when the public would be invited to public debates where professors like Mahmood Mamdani, Apolo Nsibambi, Akiiki Mujaju, and Jean Barya, would engage government officials and politicians in public discourses on the topical issues of the day are long gone, which he says is a sign of the death of intellectualism.
Prof Nawangwe does not agree. He says there is actually a lot going on.
“We have seminars almost every week. In fact, Makerere has never had as many seminars as we have today. But lovers of hooliganism would rather make people believe that the debates are not there. There are ongoing debates on human rights, elections, the military, etc. Haven’t you heard about them? The problem is that the debates are now very many and no longer isolated incidents,” Prof Nawangwe says.
Memories of goodness tend to fade faster and sooner than the effects of evil. Let it not be with Prof Nawangwe.
Additional reporting by Damali Mukhaye
