Can politicians of Stella Nyanzi’s stature be of any use to Uganda?

A senior university lecturer once said that having a PhD does not necessarily mean exceptional intellectual ability or nous; it simply means you have the highest university degree and have carried out research in a particular subject.

He is a PhD himself and got his doctorate from one of the world’s most prestigious and best-known universities, Oxford. That shields him from accusations that he was driven by jealousy to make those comments.
The lecturer was probably right. Makerere University has the highest number of PhDs on its payroll, but it is not anywhere near well-run institutions/organisations in Uganda. 

If you have read news reports about how the university works and how it is managed, and compare it with a private school, for example, or even a restaurant chain like Cafe Javas, you are probably going to conclude that it is the private school and the chain that employ PhDs and not Makerere.

Which brings me to Stella Nyanzi, PhD, and former Kampala Woman MP candidate. 
She is currently in self-imposed exile in neighbouring Kenya after her bid for a parliamentary seat in the January 14 elections came to grief. It was not just defeat. She, as Americans would love to say, got shellacked, finishing third in a race she fondly imagined she was going to win.
Stella, as her fans on social media call her, was defeated by a political toddler and lawyer named Shamim Malende. (I think she has only one degree and a diploma in legal practice from the Law Development Centre.)
 
Instead of accepting defeat gracefully, and moving on to do soul-searching and see what caused her resounding rejection, Stella fled Uganda, and once she entered Kenya, she launched a blistering attack not only  on supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP), the party that fielded the candidate who defeated her, but also on the party’s leader, Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine.
Stella has amply demonstrated that she is a terrible loser and is terribly vindictive. Maybe she has to be. Political jobs in Uganda are pretty much the be-all and end-all of life, mainly because of the monetary gain associated with them. 

Maybe Stella thought, when she was campaigning, that victory was certain and that she was going to earn big money and forget all about academia’s modest salaries.
My real concern about individuals like Stella is that they show voters they will not amount to anything long before they get into power. You can see a politician’s potential to lead even in defeat. 

Sad to say, Stella has been a complete let-down. Emboldened by Facebook likes that seem to add nothing to her electability, she has been writing obscenely about her political opponents. If she is showing signs of relenting, it is because Facebook recently took a hard line on her.
It is hard to see any PhD-ness in Stella’s political behaviour. Equally hard to see is                                                                                                                 the good she can bring to Uganda’s politics if — and it is still a big if — she becomes an MP. 
If you observe what Ms Malende is doing since she won her seat and compare it with what Stella is doing on social media, you will likely conclude that the PhD holder is Ms Malende.

And if Stella can attack nearly everyone because she lost an election, how would she conduct herself if she got real political power? 
Can Stella become a Cabinet minister, for example, and follow laws like ordinary Ugandans? Can people close to her break laws and get punished? I have my doubts.

Mr Namiti is a journalist and former Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected] @kazbuk