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| Makerere University |
On the basis of this adage, I highly doubt whether
Uganda’s president is a statesman. In my view, Mr. Museveni is a typical
Machiavellian politician. In 1987 during the currency reform, each
person that took money for changing lost thirty percent of that money.
The government immediately embarked on the unholy Structural Adjustment
Programmes (SAPs). Thereafter, Museveni embarked on divestiture of our
parastatals, marketing boards, cooperative unions and Uganda Hotels.
This was followed by the sale or giveaway of our banks including those
that were making huge profits. The NRM government then embarked on
giving away public land and this was followed by directly fleecing of
the public as was with the case of Concern for Orphans, Widows and the
Elderly (COWE). Accordingly, whoever awards Museveni for his superb
performance is deluding himself. A statesman builds for the future and
doesn’t mortgage his nation.
What does it take for a leader to build for the future?
A leader can build for the future if they made
education available, affordable, and accessible to both the rich and the
poor. A distinguished, outstanding and eminent statesman fights
corruption root and branch. This then ensures that money to equip
hospitals with drugs is available; money to pay our medical workers
handsomely is available; to build industries and factories, to create
jobs for the unemployed is available. I surely wouldn’t honour Museveni
as an eminent statesman. Today Museveni’s fight against corruption is
cosmetic as it is discriminatory. He at one time said, he has come a
long way with Mbabazi and Otafiire and that is why he defends them
whenever the duo are in a hot soup.
Museveni has presided over failed state institutions
and has done nothing to forestall this. In fact, he is squarely
responsible for dysfunctional state institutions. I know the award is
being given to him for opportunistic reasons expecting that the
president will now fund the university. This surely casts doubt on the
credibility of our university with Professor Venancius Baryamureba as
the vice chancellor. We ought to note that it is the obligation of the
state to adequately fund its institutions.
It is ironical that Makerere University is awarding
the president at a time when university dons have been turned into
paupers and they hardly can sponsor their children in a university where
they teach. This is the genesis of Professor Baryamureba’s mistakes and
I hope it becomes the last. Professor Baryamureba has once threatened
to expel students who participate in strikes as if he doesn’t know that
it is a form of exercising their rights.
As an alumnus of Makerere University, I am deeply
touched that our honorary degrees can be awarded anyhow. An honorary
degree should be a prestigious award given to people that have been
exemplary not for just boosting people’s curriculum vitae. If it was to
be awarded to a leader such as Paul Kagame who has moved his country
from scratch to strength, it would be understandable. Possibly, Museveni
would learn from Kagame’s award and change from his transactional
leadership style to transformational leadership.
During Museveni’s tenure as Uganda’s president, it is
rare to give jobs on merit. What works is the spoils system typical of
his patronage and clientelism. Today, higher education is a preserve of
the rich. The few peasants’ children who by accident attain higher
education are condemned to eternal unemployment because jobs are given
to children whose parents fought, the cronies and relatives of the
powers that be and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) cadres most of
whom forge academic credentials from Nasser Road.
Currently, if a pa
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