Uganda: Makerere should learn from Mamdani-Stella Nyanzi Saga

Resumen: La Universidad de Makerere se encuentra en el ojo de otra tormenta, después  del conflicto público entre el profesor Mahmood Mamdani y el Dr. Stella Nyanzi llego a un punto sin precedentes.

Makerere University finds itself in the eye of another storm, after – last Monday – the very public conflict between Prof Mahmood Mamdani and Dr Stella Nyanzi plunged to an unprecedented low.

Locked out of her office for refusing to teach on the PhD programme at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, anthropologist Nyanzi dropped her clothes in a bid to expose what she sees as Mamdani’s autocratic maladministration.

Mamdani, the MISR executive director, argues that people like Nyanzi are guilty of using public facilities to conduct private business without doing official work – meaning the public is being cheated.

The university’s appoints board was today expected to meet to discuss these absurd developments and, hopefully, devise sound solutions. Our view is that it is a pity that this meeting, and the ones that preceded it last week, are only happening now.

Disagreements in and between organisations are normal; what makes some get amplified in the media is the rigour of conflict-resolution structures within the concerned organisations. The Mamdani-Nyanzi row, for instance, has burbled right under our noses for years, till it exploded. There were all indications that as surely as day turns into night, the situation could only become nastier.

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Yet decisive action proved elusive. It may have come late, but the opportunity is now here for Makerere administrators to figure out how to systematically resolve this and the many other conflicts in the institution. Without being distracted by the numbing image of a mother stripping in anger, authorities need to address the core issues that the present saga throws up.

Is it the case a member of staff is being paid by the university without doing the work she is paid for? If that is the case, is it the direct outcome of the alleged mismanagement at MISR? Is this defensible, according to the university’s rules and regulations?

Why is it that so many researchers have left? Is it because they were the wrong apples confronted by a no-nonsense reformer? Or is it a case of bad leadership throwing away good fruits?

Pushing Nyanzi or Mamdani away without addressing underlying issues would mean that sooner or later Makerere would have another Nyanzi fighting another Mamdani. Were that to happen, Uganda’s leading university would have Ugandans down.