By Peter Wamboga-Mugirya
Makerere, regarded the Ivory tower, the highest seat of academic knowledge and one of Uganda/East Africa’s oldest universities, lies in an area of Kampala City that greatly challenges the very existence of this university. First, did you know that the name ‘Makerere’ is derived from the Kiswahili word: makelele meaning noise or ululations. The Kiswahili speakers among early British Colonial administrators who governed Buganda, reportedly would say: “kwamulima huko kuna makelele mingi saana ya wanganga…” I’ve paraphrased the statement that was reportedly made during the late 19th century or thereabout. It literally meant: “how come on that hill, there’s a lot of noise from those witchdoctors…” Apparently, the comment was in regard to noises that used to be made in the shrines by local witchdoctors (Abasamizze) who had built, lived and worked there!
That’s how the name Makerere (with ‘R’s replacing ‘L’s by Bazungu) came to be, according to my sources. There could be a different version of events, we can have it too. I’m no final authority! Buganda Kingdom later in the 20th century, partly through Katikiro Martin Luther Nsibirwa–of that time–(signed to give Mulago Hill next to Makerere in exchange for land at Kansanga to the Colonial British Protectorate Administration) to build the institution of higher learning for East Africa which materialized in 1922, as a College to train professionals! When it became a university, Mulago Hill hosts the hospital where health/medical manpower are trained, as part of Makerere University.
Today, Kikoni, Kiwuunya, Nakulabye, Kivulu and Katanga are all among slums that surround Makerere and present some of the challenges the university studies/teaches in planning, housing, poverty, population demographics, health, environmental studies, economics and social studies, among other fields to handle.
If Makerere University engages in what they call ‘education’ of people into specialists or experts, their immediate surroundings should have their first place of call for study and first beneficiaries of the skills and education there is! I’m talking of the application of their skills and knowledge to put right and reduce or completely eradicate the abject poverty, disease, population explosion and ignorance which are abound in these slum areas. Makerere should have long time ago proved it’s relevance and capacity, within it’s own environs first; if the theories and the hypothesis they put up are well-thought out, tested and proven that they actually work!
The University although it is long overdue, should have designed a strategic program under which they study and try out their various theories and approaches to those challenges I’ve outlined above in this commentary. The issues of slums and their accompanying congestion, filthy environments, lack of water and sanitation, unplanned and disorganized housing, lack of toilets, garbage accumulation, poor drainage and lack of proper disposal, high alcohol and drug abuse, crime and unemployment — the last two as a cause and a consequence or vice-versa!
For the time I’ve studied, lived and worked in Kampala — over 30 years — I’ve never seen nor ever known of such a program that deploys the university’s students during their 2nd or 3rd years, for example, to a hands-on experience from nearby slums (avoiding or minimizing any big costs of transport and attendant expenses if a research field area is far off/away from Muk). An integrated approach of multiple Mak colleges or schools to try and test their students using the ‘slummy’ conditions around Makerere, so that the multi-disciplinary teams would go as a combined team to study the challenges in their neighborhood. Someone would ask how this idea would work. Many disciplines are interrelated and interdependent.
First, if the University management regards this approach as useful, practical and realistic, it would initiate discussion with the local leaderships of the Divisions of Central and Kawempe under KCCA and the Local CounciIs (LCs) of the various Parishes, Wards/Cells/Villages that make up the areas mapped for the study. These moves would be followed with public bazaars with residents to enlighten them of what the study is about, to follow, so that they cooperate with the researchers and appreciate that the studies would culminate in the improvement of the current/longstanding ugly/filthy conditions in their slums. This first set of moves would lay the foundation for the next on-the-ground research activities. This research would include collection of data, documentation of conditions from leaders’ and residents’ testimonies/comments etc.
The outcomes of such processes would inform the teams of what is required to do as far as removal of the eyesore slum conditions. What case scenarios of these conditions is the high crime and dire health we witness there. These slums are the bastions of organized crime, home & training grounds for criminal ringleaders and networks!
And whenever there’s a strike at the University, criminal-minded students team up with hardcore criminals from Wandegeya and the slums around Makerere University, to loot shops and other businesses. They do all manner of criminal activities during the strikes and the areas around Makerere have suffered as long as the university has existed/striked!
Students should, at the end of such a project and their courses, be able to master skills and rich experiences before they leave the campus.
If this was done beginning many years ago, my conviction is the slums that are a stark contrast with the green and clean fenced off university, would be a better place not as a source of problems for Makerere but as a useful and more helpful neighborhood of the university. And the university would be relevant to it’s neighborhood and cease to be an Ivory towered white elephant, with too much English-speaking (oluzungu lunji)!
Peter Wamboga-Mugirya is a science journalist & social commentator.
@wambotwit
Wamboga-Mugirya is the Director, Communication and Partnerships, Science Foundation for Livelihoods and Development (SCIFODE), and Executive Member of Uganda Science Journalists’ Association (USJA). He can be reached through PO Box 36587 Kampala, UGANDA.
