There is a timeless quote by Gen Kahinda Otafiire where he advises journalists to “leave matters of the Generals to the Generals.”
Indeed, in military protocol, the standard operating procedure is never to send a Colonel to arrest a General or a Private to quiz a Colonel. A commander of a unit cannot be someone of a lower rank than those they command. Only equal rank arrests, commands, orders or admonishes equal rank.
Indeed, while this rule is more pronounced in military protocol, it is true of all human interaction and engagements: knowledge superiority or seniority of rank or experience leads.
To be a General (compare PhD or Professor), it means one went through the furnace of the military training or even got engaged in actual combat. Not just drills and simulations. Thus, a recent recruit or a junior without similar experience or training cannot lead a senior officer in any affairs related to warfare.
Carrying on with the imagery of warfare, the battleground that is Makerere University is a battlefield of the mind, perhaps the most sophisticated of all battles – imparting, fighting and curating knowledge and attitudes.
How does one understand that civilians such as Mr Edwin Karugire (Chair, Appointments Board), Mrs Lorna Magara (Chair, University Council), Mr Bruce Kabasa (former Chair, Appointments Board), Mr Yusuf Kiranda (University Secretary) Mrs Janet Museveni (Minister of Education) deciding for, ordering, commanding and deploying Professors, PhDs, and SeniorLecturers––at a university! How did Academic Captains and Privates get to command Academic Generals, Colonels and Academic Field Marshals?
I do not mean to begrudge any of these wonderful Ugandans. They have an equal stake in this country and are qualified to make a contribution – and have done so already. But why task them to be responsible for folks more qualified than them in this battleground of knowledge production and dissemination? Why embarrass them with things they only barely understand and endlessly bring them into disrepute, disdain, conflict and insults? Is this the blindness that power brings?
At the end of the day, the university has had to painfully climb down to the core competences of its operators and key decision-makers. And in all fairness, they have done wonderfully well. I know, while their accomplishments might not merit Makerere the level of a university, the place scores really highly as a modern, big secondary school or a wonderfully run, monstrous law firm. Let’s consider two infrastructural marvels.
A HIGH SCHOOL WALL
There are some really strong – but clearly high-schoolish – arguments for this glittering wall encircling Makerere: (a) locking out land grabbers and encroachers, (b) locking out thieves and other riff-raff stealing or vandalising university property, especially professors’ automobiles and (c) the university property being ruined through overuse by the non-university public, especially those who pack their vehicles inside the university spaces. (Never mind this same public actually funds this university). All these arguments make sense in a high school setting.
Consider that the most prestigious universities across the world are actually small university towns. Not gated semi-prisons. And this was the dream behind the founding of Makerere University with Mulago/Medical school on the other hill across the valley; the university hospital across Makerere Hill road; several buildings in Kololo; staff quarters in Katalemwa; labour lines near Bwaise, Makerere Kavule, et cetera. So, what did these fellas enclose in? Did they mean to say Makerere is just that wall?
As I have argued before, the idea of a ‘university town’ is to enable university students, who are treated as free-spirited and independent adults, soon joining the real world — of thieves, encroachers, idlers, dealers, harassers — to interact with this world while still at university.
They ought not to be shocked upon their arrival into the workforce. In fact, in many jurisdictions across the world, members of the general public are free to walk into any seminars without asking for permission – just to learn something (and only enrol if they wish to earn a certificate).
So, while walling a university might work, allegedly protecting the land or keeping thieves away, it is undoubtedly the laziest option for a university (training lawyers and surveyors), which also irredeemably hurts the spirit of a university, compromising the quality of graduates.
You have seen these graduates looking like broiler chicken unable to even cross the boda-boda filled street.
FROM SCHOLARS TO FACTORY WORKERS
When you go around Makerere University nowadays, you will notice a small screen capturing images as one enters a college or department. The idea is that professors –– like factory workers and menial labourers –– have to clock in and clock out every day. They have to register an eight-hour shift of labour.
I learned that this innovation came after some unscrupulous professors were discovered as leaving their courses to teaching assistants for an entire semester, and that this clock-in system was the remedy. Again, it is the lazy option.
One quickly understands that the brains behind this clock-in system – implemented without a guiding policy –– are actually out of depth with the world of academia and scholarship. Academics, professor and other PhDs are not factory workers.
They are a special breed of public servants as they are the only ones who train other public servants. Their offices are not some sort of high school staffroom where they all have to be present during meal times. They do not have ‘teaching plans’ to design every day, and exercise books to grade.
For a scholar – an academic General or Colonel in the true sense of the word –– their life is scholarship itself. When out in bars, strip clubs or coffeehouses, they are picking examples and life-lessons for the next seminar or lecture. Indeed, in my student days, we wildly enjoyed and learned from Dr Okello Ogwang’s seminars, especially the course, ‘African Popular Arts and Cultures,’ partly, because of his wonderful social life.
His examples were vivid. So was, James Tabbu Busimba in Lecture Room 4. Students did not want to miss his lectures. Ever wondered why the joke goes that ‘a scholar’s life is boring’? Yes, because they do not know anything else except living a world of scholarship and community engagement.
This is why scholars tend to have expansive bookshelves in their houses – or elaborate study rooms. Why? Because they are reading or responding to emails after dinners with their spouses. They are participating in public conversations in village squares, markets, radio stations and TVs. They are talking in Twitter spaces. This is their life.
Indeed, to demand that these brains clock in and clock out is to reduce them to factory workers. It is to undervalue their intellectual production and benefit to the community.
But again, this is because the operators of Makerere University, our academic Captains and Privates, barely understand the world of academic Generals and Field Marshals. The closest experience they have is secondary school management, a law firm or family project.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.