MY CONCLUSIVE PROMISE AS THE NEXT CHAIRMAN MAKERERE UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION

BY VINCENT NUWAGABA

As Makerere heads to the polls for the convocation elections on the 13th December 2014, I am offering myself to provide strategic leadership to the university. I am not standing because I need to elevate myself but because I need to elevate the university to which I belong. Ultimately, if the university is elevated, I will equally be elevated and everyone associated with it will be elevated. I am fully convinced that if Makerere regains its number one position in Africa, all of us holders of Makerere University credentials will highly be respected wherever we are. It is our duty now to work for the elevation of Makerere University. Accordingly, I am standing as Chairman Makerere University Convocation for the following reasons:
1) My leadership will work tooth and nail to ensure that Makerere University has its own publishing house akin to what other prestigious universities do own. The Makerere University printery shall give way for Makerere University Publishers/Press. Prof Christopher Mbazira of the School of Law in particular told me that whenever and wherever he travels outside and he syas he is from Makerere, the first question he is asked “Why doesn’t Makerere have a publishing House?” The usefulness of a publishing house cannot be overemphasized. With a publishing house, Makerere Faculty members will start teaching people using their own books because it is easy to publish. As we talk now even Mawazo Journal is defunct. This is quite unfortunate and we the alumni have to do a lot to redeem the image of our alma mater
2) During my leadership Makerere University shall run a weekly News Magazine wherein I and other prominent alumni and staff will run regular columns on issues of governance, constitutionalism, rule of law, democracy and all societal issues from a holistic perspective. There is nothing that stops Makerere University Convocation from running a weekly magazine. We still live in the nostalgia of The Transition Magazine.
3) My leadership shall erect a radio station with a national and regional (East African) coverage with a view to engaging the entire populace on issues that matter. The programmes will be broadcast in various languages. In the near future, we shall pool resources and have a television station. We must work through and with the media if Makerere is to regain its past glory. And, I insist all is possible. It only requires us to decide that we want a, b and c. Remember there is nothing impossible (Luke 1: 37) since ours is a world of possibilities.
4) My leadership shall start a serious research institute to carry out academic research but also applied research that is necessary for development. This will equip our young but talented graduates to build a career in research. For sure, research is a sine qua non for development. This will also help curb graduate employment whereby the most brilliant graduates will be employed in the convocation research institute. This will ultimately curb the evil practice of having coursework mercenaries in and around Makerere University.
5) My leadership will put in place a sturdy secretariat of not less than fifty members to purely run convocation matters. I feel so sad to find that memberless NGOs far outshine Makerere University Convocation, an organisation to which all alumni and members of staff are members.
6) I, together with my team shall create a data base of everybody who has gone through the gates of Makerere as a student, lecturer, professor, and administration staff or even support staff. This data base will help us reach out to key stakeholders to provide solutions that have beset Makerere University. I am sure we have alumni who if well mobilized and reached out to each one can donate not a minimum of $400 to Makerere University. But alas, here we are crying that we do not have money and the only source is by increasing students’ fees. This is a short-lived measure and breeds strikes instead but does not build for the future that we desire.
7) I shall fight root and branch, body, mind and soul, left, right and centre for the welfare of Makerere University students for they are all our young siblings and we are their big brothers and sisters.
8) During my tenure as a university council member, fees increments will be a thing of the past. Section 2 of the Universities and Tertiary Institutions Act (UTIA) is clear. A public university is run out of public funds. What it means is that all students of Makerere University including private sponsored students must never be denied access on the basis of exorbitant and prohibitive fees. Private students are in particular meant to be subsidised.
9) My leadership will take Makerere University convocation to the people in the countryside including to all East African countries and the diaspora. Thus, we shall have a regional office for each of the four regions respectively; we shall have convocation offices in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi but also South Sudan. And we shall have an office in the Diaspora to make Makerere a global University.
10) My leadership will start a Makererean Think Tank on all socio-economic and political issues. This tank shall majorly do academic research and disseminate findings through publications and public fora. Never again will anything take place in Uganda without the input of thousands of intellectuals that Makerere has churned out.
11) My leadership will mobilise and organise all Makerere Alumni around issues of a socio-economic nature and ultimately we shall form a social movement that will dictate to our national and regional leaders on what must be done. This social movement if I can be allowed to borrow a leaf from the words of Martin Luther shall ensure that nobody in Uganda or outside bends their back to enable other people ride on it.
12) Via the data base, we shall share all the opportunities - jobs, scholarships, short fellowships, research grants and so forth to all Makerere Alumni and staff
13) My leadership will spearhead constitutional amendment to ensure that students also participate in the voting for the Convocation leadership. One may ask, “how can they vote yet they are not alumni and are not allowed to stand?” My answer to such a question is, there is nothing strange, there is nothing spectacular, there is nothing new or unique about it. We men vote for Women MPs but cannot stand. The justification is that women issues and concerns are directly or indirectly concerns of men. This is because every woman has either a husband or a father or a brother or a son. Likewise, the convocation is represented at the university council. Council is the supreme decision-making organ of the University. Council decisions affect students as well as staff. The convocation right now comprises of alumni and staff but not students. We need to make it more embracing and make the campaigns for leadership positions vibrant, open and more participatory and inclusive.
14) My leadership will routinely organize an Alumni Reunion day each year. On this day presentations from prominent alumni will be delivered with a view to charting a direction for the university. The alumni reunion day will be different from the AGM. But also, we shall have as and when necessary special or extraordinary general meetings to discuss pressing issues. The members will accordingly be part and parcel of running the convocation.
15) Our team shall make Identification Cards for Convocation members. This means that even if one lost their University student identification card, the Convocation can work as an alternative. This is handy especially given that after graduation one cannot get a student Identification card yet it is necessary especially while applying for any further studies either at Makerere or elsewhere.
16) Once elected into office, I shall in liaison with my team members establish a convocation advisory council of ten to twenty members comprising of outstanding former convocation leader (s), prominent academics, prominent businessmen/women, a prominent former guild president and prominent public/civil servant(s).
17) My leadership will classify members on the basis of voluntary subscriptions. We shall have platinum category of members, diamond category, gold category and silver category. We shall endear the alumni, staff members and former staff members to Makerere University by making the Convocation relevant.
18) My leadership will reinstate Convocation parties after graduation so that fresh graduates who might not have organised parties can attend the convocation party, cut a cake and have their parents entertained by Makerere University. Making parties for the fresh graduates is the best means of convoking them into the family of Makerere University alumni.
19) The money fundraised by the convocation members shall be used to enhance staff members' salaries, subsidise students fees, fund academic research and build a convocation complex, among others. Never again shall Makerere kneel before the head of state for funding because this dilutes the institution's independence.
The above and very many other ideas that will be generated by the distinguished convocation members, my team and I will ensure we begin on a journey of liberating Makerere University and ensuring that it lives up to its motto of “We build for the future”.
Contact: vnuwagaba@gmail.com/ vnuwagaba@chuss.mak.ac.ug cell: +256702843552

Gerald Karuhanga, declare your stand now vis-a-vis Makerere Convocation elections

I am inspired and deeply honoured to learn that very many alumni and staff of Makerere read what I post here on this forum and assure me that I am the only person with the wherewithal to hold the flag of Makerereans as the convocation chairman and convocation representative to the university council.

The support you have given me so far remind me of the support Makerere University students of our time always gave me whenever and wherever I would offer myself to lead.

I was not very ambitious during my time at the University. I only wanted to become an international diplomat or a professor. Accordingly, I read international relations and diplomatic studies. I dropped sociology (which could have aided me get a first class) for French because I needed an international language for diplomacy.

Nonetheless, I continued to read and work very hard so much so that I remained on Dean's List and my grades are classified as very good. The seven leadership positions that I held at the same time did not bog me down to the extent of making me fail.

Indeed, I am no the road to becoming a fully-fledged professor of political science having taught in two universities, conducted academic research with the most brilliant professor of law John-Jean Barya. I intend to write five incisive books in the next five years and the first one is coming in the next four months.
Those who have read about Plato - political scientists, lawyers and philosophy graduates/students know well that knowledge is virtue and those with virtue are the ones best suited to lead.

Of all people vying for the position of chairman convocation, I am arguably the only one who engages the public in intellectual discourses. The rest are mobilising mobs behind the scenes and want the mobs to hand the leadership of the most significant institution in Makerere University to them.

They are paying subscription for members well knowing that once they are there they will recoup their expenses a thousandfold. We must say no to these vultures who are scheming to pounce on the Makerere University convocation funds as if it is a carcass.

I continue to hear that my brother Hon Gerald Karuhanga is still in the race which I highly doubt unless I get it from the horse's mouth. Nonetheless, in case and I am saying just in case Gerald K Karuhanga continues to be in the race for chairmanship, his strategy does not work for him and I can openly assure him that he is riding for a fall. I have never seen Gerald Karuhanga lose any election. I saw him become a powerful Makerere Students Guild Speaker; I saw him elected a Guild President and he served excellently well.

I prevailed on UYD students in Lumumba (because I am an elephant and a Democratic Party member) to give him a breathing space when they were up in arms against him. I told them the most important thing is that the empire had a president and the rest was commentary.

Gerald has been and continues to be very helpful to me. But I am worried he is not open to me. I have made several efforts to talk to him and he does not pick my calls. All efforts I make to talk to him are geared towards convincing him to become my vice chairman since he is already too busy with state duties and is doing excellently well as a member of parliament. There is a limit to which one can stand astride. When one overstretches himself/herself, he or she is bound to be torn apart.

Makerere is straining and parliament is straining and stressful. To prove my point, at the age of 31, Gerald Karuhanga's head is full of grey hair. It is because he thinks a lot. If he did not probably goons in this country would have killed him given his frank and honest razor sharp criticism.
But also friends are saying, "you and Gerald are the most resourceful people that we do not want to miss on the convocation leadership" they add, "please, sit down and see how best you can work together".

I have always remarked about Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG) an organisation whose dejure executive director is Hon Maj (Rtd) Okwir Rabwoni. CCG operates from the convocation house but members do not know how it ended up there.

Hon Gerald Karuhanga is the single most important person that gave CCG shelter at the convocation house. And the reason is simple. He admires Hon Okwir, sees him as a mentor and would do anything to offer a helping hand. I have told Bruce Balaba countless times that Gerald did the inevitable. Even if it was me I would have given Okwir domicile. The only difference is that personally, I would have gone further to regularise their stay through tabling the matter in the AGM which was never done.

In the foregoing I remarked that Okwir is a de jure executive director. The de facto Executive Director of CCG is Bireete Sarah. Sarah chooses whatever is done at CCG. Currently she is furious with CCG Board chairman  Bishop David Zac Niringiye because Niringiye raised certain questions that did not go down well with her. Bireete Sarah is excessively corrupt. She is arguably more corrupt than corruption. You all know that she was convicted over a corruption scandal in the ministry of foreign affairs under the great lakes region project. I know she did not appeal but she is out of jail. How she got out of jail without going through the formal legal processes, she herself and the NRM government know better.
Corruption and constitutionalism are incompatible. Now Sarah is busy eating (read stealing) donor funds majorly from DGF and she wants us to believe that she is working to promote constitutional governance. She does not understand what constitutional governance is and what it is not. And because I have always asked tough questions she seems to be the one driving Gerald Karuhanga to stand against me and divide the vote from right thinking alumni and staff members of Makerere University. Hon Gerald Karuhanga needs to pronounce openly whether or not he is standing. I have declared my stand and it is up to the rest to sort themselves out vis-a-vis my stand.

Mak Convocation elections

October 16 at 6:58pm · Kampala · Edited ·

Well, it seems I am the only one vying for the convocation chair so far. I have proved that my brother Hon Gerald Karuhanga is not going to stand for that post as was reported in the Red Pepper. Gerald K Karuhanga says as a youth MP he is too busy to be in two strenuous offices at the same time. What he has not yet done openly is to campaign for me which I expect he will do.
I have a long history with Gerald. I joined campus in 2001 when he was in senior five at SMACK. And that is when we became friends. Gerald admired my ability to talk what others feared in a conference involving SPLA at Pope Paul Memorial in Ndeeba. By that time I was the secretary general for PAUSU (Pan African Universities Students' Union) an organisation I started with comrades Richard Muhumuza, Namara Doreen Karokora, Rukidi Mpuga Elijah and a few others.
Gerald had to look for me in 2002 at the CODESRIA General Assembly. I was perhaps the first to know how he performed in A level exams apart from his parents; I supported Gerald to be the Makerere University Guild Speaker, I supported him as he vied for the post of Guild President; when UYD students were up in arms against him in Lumumba, I told them "the empire has a guild president, please keep the name of the empire high". Me and Gerald are like siamese twins. We definitely cannot vie for the same position.

Here is what I stand for as the next Chairman Makerere University Convocation.

Makerere University is sick

Library closes on Sundays yet the university depends on evening students majority of whom do work and therefore have time to read on weekends.

Student welfare remains wanting.
1) I, together with the team the Makerere University alumni and members of staff will give shall create a data base of everybody who has gone through the gates of Makerere as a student, lecturer, professor, and administration staff or even support staff. This data base will help us reach out to key stakeholders to provide solutions that have beset Makerere University.

2) I shall fight root and branch, body, mind and soul, left, right and centre for the welfare of Makerere University students for they are all our young siblings and we are their big brothers and sisters. 

3) During my tenure as a university council member, fees increments will be a thing of the past. Section 2 of the Universities and Tertiary Institutions Act (UTIA) is clear. A public university is run out of public funds. What it means is that all students of Makerere University including private sponsored students must never be denied access on the basis of exorbitant and prohibitive fees. Private students are in particular meant to be subsidised. 

4) My leadership will take Makerere University convocation to the people in the countryside including to all East African countries and the diaspora. Thus, we shall have a regional office for each of the four regions respectively, we shall have convocation offices in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi but also South Sudan. And we shall have an office in the diaspora to make Makerere a global University. 

5) My leadership will start a Makererean Think Tank on all socio-economic and political issues. This tank shall majorly do academic research and disseminate findings through publications and public fora. Never again will anything take place in Uganda without the input of thousands of intellectuals that Makerere has churned out.

6) My leadership will mobilise and organise all Makerere Alumni around issues of a socio-economic nature and ultimately we shall form a social movement that will dictate to our national and regional leaders on what must be done. This social movement if I can be allowed to borrow a leaf from the words of Martin Luther shall ensure that nobody in Uganda or outside bends their back to enable other people ride on it.

7) Via the data base, we shall share all the opportunities - jobs, scholarships, short fellowships, research grants and so forth to all Makerere Alumni and staff.

8. My leadership will spearhead constitutional amendment to ensure that students also participate in the voting for the Convocation leadership. One may ask, “how can they vote yet they are not alumni and are not allowed to stand?” My answer to such a question is, there is nothing strange, there is nothing spectacular, there is nothing new about it. We men vote for Women MPs but cannot stand. The justification is that women issues and concerns are directly or indirectly concerns of men. This is because every woman has either a husband or a father or a brother. Likewise, the convocation is represented at the university council. Council is the supreme decision-making organ of the University. Council decisions affect students as well as staff. The convocation right now comprises of alumni and staff but not students. We need to make it more embracing and make the campaigns for leadership positions vibrant, open and more participatory and inclusive.

The above and very many ideas that I, you the distinguished and my team will generate will ensure we begin on a journey of having an egalitarian society based on the principles of social justice and human dignity.