On July 15th, 2022, Makerere University Council halted the electoral process for the 88th guild leadership. The council also suspended all activities of the senior common room, caretaker government, and guild leadership structures.
This was part of the decisions made by the council to restore peace at the institution following the chaotic Guild campaigns that had resulted in the death of Bewotti Batungura, a student from Uganda Christian University.
Betungura met his death when clashes broke out between Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and National Unity Platform -NUP supporters on July 14th, 2022, hours before Guild elections that were scheduled to take place the following day.
Defending the suspension of the polls, Makerere University Secretary, Yusuf Kiranda, said the council had to take immediate steps to guarantee peace at the university. The council later set up a six-member committee to review all operations of the student leadership before a final decision is made. A month, later the committee handed its report to the council, which was never made public save for the resolutions.
As the processes were ongoing, a section of students led by former Guild President Shamim Nambasa engaged the Council on several occasions before they petitioned the speaker of parliament and the leader of the opposition. They later went on to file a suit before the high court to restore the Guild leadership.
Ordinarily, one would ask why students would fight this hard to restore the guild leadership since the other activities in the university are running normally. URN dives a little deeper into the role of the Guild leadership, and what students lose without its existence. The guild leadership structure is clear and under the leadership of the Guild President, who is elected by Universal suffrage and is the head of the cabinet.
The cabinet comprises the guild president, vice president, prime minister, deputy prime minister, minister for Academic Affairs, the minister for Estates and Environment, minister for External Affairs, Minister for Finance, minister for Gender, Ethics, and Integrity, Minister for Health, Minister for Information, minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs among others. Each of the ministers performs their role as stipulated in the Guild Constitution.
Below the cabinet is the Guild Representatives Council comprising representatives from each school, halls of residence, the Chief Editor of the Makererean, the Guild Advisor, the Legal Advisor, the Chairperson of the Games Union, and Representatives of persons with disabilities. The GRC is headed by a speaker who is elected by the representatives.
Julius Kateregga, who served as the 85th Guild President of Makerere University spoke to URN about the role of the student leaders. He explained that student leaders engage the University administration to discuss issues affecting students, arguing that the suspension of the student leadership automatically cuts off this link.
Kateregga further explains that students are supposed to have at least two representatives on the Universal council to take part in key decisions around the University. The University Council is the supreme organ responsible for fulfilling the overall administrative objectives and functions of the University.
It comprises 25 members representing various departments of the university including students.
He recalls the famous “fees MUST fall” campaign when “his regime” led students to demonstrate for nearly three weeks in contention of the then proposed 15 percent cumulative increment on all courses at Makerere University for the next five years.
While campaigning for Guild Presidency, Kateregga notes that his core agenda was to fight the 15% tuition increment, which had been earlier introduced. Hardly had he won the election than he started mobilizing students for the cause and his “plans” yielded results following the two-week long strike that force the university to halt the proposed increase.
Above all, Kateregga says, cabinet ministers contribute tremendously to the welfare of students. He explains how he led his cabinet to orient fresh students on their welfare.
“I remember when I was still Guild President, we put up a committee for off-campus ministry, my Guild then moved around hostels and identified the good hostels that were good for students and we recommended them, this would protect students from landing to dangerous places”, he said
Shamim Nambassa, the former Makerere University Guild President whose government was the last to lead students before the suspension of the student leadership, says that all the decisions taken by the University council without student representatives are illegal.
One of the key decisions that the Universal Council has made since July 15th, 2022 was to reappoint Professor Barnabas Nawangwe for a second term as the Vice-Chancellor. According to Nambassa, this decision is questionable because the students were never represented.
Apparently, a section of students has already filed a case challenging the ongoing amendment of the Guild constitution. They want the high court to issue an interim order stopping the exercise on grounds the students were never involved.
However, before this is done, URN understands that the University Council has already issued a raft of changes in the guild constitution. The changes, among others, include a resolution that “Student elections at the university shall be virtual unless otherwise determined by the University Council.” This is in line with the earlier decision taken by the university council on July, 15th 2022.
Section 8(c) of the statute also states that “any student to be elected or appointed to a leadership position under the Guild shall have completed a minimum of two semesters at the university and shall have attained a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.0 as stated in Section 8 (b) of this statute”. Kateregga says such amendments would be contested if students were well represented on the council.
-URN
