Makerere University Sunk So Low, Operates As a Criminal Enterprise

OThe sacking of close to 50 employees at Makerere University has raised many concerns in the public with many questioning the current leadership’s capacity.

The new leadership has moved to consolidate authority over students and staff threatening voices of descent.

Most of the sacked Employees accuse the current leadership of abuse of
procedures, regulations, policies and law — all in one sweeping course
of action.

There were too many
procedural irregularities and evident prejudice and wanton
victimization.

The hearing itself was extremely unfair, with the
University featuring in my case (as stated in the summon letter and the
charge sheet) as the Complainant, Prosecutor and the Judge!

You yourself
(as the VC) and Prof Mamdani were the legitimate complainants, but you
hid under Makerere University! A fair hearing required the two of you to
make the case in person and appear for cross-examination. I asked the
prosecutors to produce the two of you but they quietly declined to do
so!

Mr. Vice Chancellor, enforcing discipline seems to be your defining
mandate. I find this shocking to say the least. If your predecessor Prof
Ddumba was as vindictive as you are, I wonder where you would have
ended.

You talk about insubordination. All the time you spent
undermining your boss and engaging in flagrant acts of insubordination
and underhand methods.

That was indiscipline and insubordination, plain
and simple. Prof. Mamdani’s egotistical disregard for structures,
regulations, administrative hierarchies and continued abuse of office,
among other improprieties and abuse of institutional resources – these
are cases of gross misconduct.

“Any attempts to make those who have been disciplined look like martyrs
are futile. They all have the right to appeal against the Appointments
Board decisions through proper channels.”

The similarity I’m making with this COMPARISON is
this: in a criminal syndicate, the criminals (read culprits) strut
around scot free and it’s the victims and whistle-blowers who bite the
bullet.

That is why constructive and honest criticism which should
thrive in a University worth its name has under your administration been
branded as an insult. A University where criticism has been driven
underground is nothing more than a glorified secondary school.

Your friend Prof. Mamdani, who claim the highroad of decolonization
initiative can educate on this matter. Across postcolonial locations
around the world, intellectuals and anti-colonial intelligentsia who are
credited with spearheading the freedom that we now enjoy, and whose
energies were spent in restoring the dignity and the very humanity of
black people around the world were individuals who were not afraid to
speak out their minds.

They did so aware of the risks and consequences.
But they were led by the courage of their convictions. Prof. Mamdani
likes to parade himself as part of this intellectual vanguard. But he
should face up to the irony of his emergence as the patron of the
blackguard that is systematically eroding the intellectual fibre and the
level of integrity we expect of a University of Makerere’s standing.

“We should all join hands and stamp indiscipline and impunity out of
Makerere University.”

Sure, we shall all join hands in stamping out indiscipline and impunity
in this great University. Unfortunately, if we succeed, you and your ilk
who think they have a stranglehold on this University and who are
strutting around with brazen impunity will be the ones to struggle for
the exit.

Colleagues out there may not be vocal about what they know
about you and which they choose to voice in hushed tones. Don’t insult
our intelligence and interpret the silence of the majority and assume
that we are so stupid and gullible.

This institution is BIG, with a rich history behind it. That history was
written by TOWERING ITELLECTS whose memory will inspire a genuinely
cleansing crusade not the kind of farce you are calling for here.

The wheels of truth and justice roles may roll at incredibly slow pace.
But they do turn full circle. You can smirk arrogantly imagining that
you have thought out everything with utmost care. History teaches us
otherwise. The blot you leave on the memory will be wiped away by the
deeds of worthier men and women than yourself.

So, true, impunity and scoundrellism will be swept out of Makerere
University. But not in the way you think. In the history of its long
existence, THE UNIVERSITY has seen the likes of you before. THE SPIRIT
OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE WILL ALWAYS PREVAILS WHETHER OR NOT YOU SUCCEED IN
SHOWING THE OCITAS AND THE NIWAGABAS THE EXIT.

In the end, blackguards don’t win. That’s my one big consolation.

One parting word: The timing of the release of the decision of the
Appointments Board just before Christmas was a sinister move meant to
take away public attention from this sordid deed.

The hope of its
architects must have been that by the time we return back from the
Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, the furore would have died.

That’s precisely the reason I won’t make any proper response till the
new year. This matter isn’t going to die a slow death that its
architects hoped for.

In the coming days, whether on this or other
platforms or media, I’ll paint a shocking picture of corruption in MISR
and Makerere University, and explain the real reasons why the powers
that be (personified by Prof. Nawangwe, Prof. Mamdani and Dr Okello
Ogwang) connived to subject me to a disciplinary process.

I will also
release details that I’ve never revealed before to paint a better
picture of the kind of leaders that this great institution is cursed to
have produced. And yet these is the kind of individuals who brazenly
want to claim the moral highroad. Watch this space. And even if this
space is closed to me, there will be other alternative media out there.
The fight has just began!

—
James Ocita, PhD
Lecturer, Department of Literature