Under Edwin Karugire, is it possible to research on state ‘enemies’ like Bobi Wine & Dr Stella Nyanzi?

When you survive death at the hands of unknown goons, your life changes in many ways.

For instance, you live with endless trauma as you see a potential attacker on every boda boda that passes. But worse than the trauma is self-censorship: You die inside as a writer and as an intellectual because you are scared that everything you say could lead to yet another attack.

But there are times when self- censorship gnaws at your soul until you say: enough is enough, however dangerous it is. The appointment of Edwin Karugire as the chair, Makerere University Appointments Board, is one of those moments when you decide to say what is in your heart, even when you know the harm that speaking out could cause you.

The news that Karugire, President Museveni’s son-in-law, had been appointed as the chair of the Appointments Board of Makerere University was not surprising to many people.

In many ways, the university is on good terms with the ruling party and the reigning family; so, it is easy to see President Museveni’s trusted aides and relatives get powerful positions at Makerere or any other place where resistance to the NRMisation or Musevenification of public places and spaces is now a thing of the past.

Professor Joshua Rubongoya of Raonoke College, Salem, Virginia, calls this Musevenification of public space “Pax- Musevenica.” In other words, we have an imperial president subduing everything to his will. The selection of Karugire to chair the Makerere University Appointments Board is one of the things that show the power President Museveni wields. With time, his challengers scatter and fall.

Makerere University, Kampala City Council (KCC, not KCCA) and Kisekka market have all fallen, one after another. I know nothing about KCC and Kisekka market; so, I will not say anything about them. But I do know something about Makerere University, the place where I have taught for 21 years.

A university is supposed to be, among many things, the citadel of free thought. This means that at a university, students and faculty members can pursue intellectual pursuits even in areas that are considered unconventional, useless or outrightly controversial.

Think queer sexualities studies, for instance, the controversial area par excellence in Christian Uganda. At the university, I should be free to conduct research on sexual minorities; say, on the challenges they face and the different ways in which they deal with these challenges.

There should be nothing wrong with this because at the university, one can research on anything, including on a topic as eccentric as this one: The Sexual Lives of Grasshoppers: a Case of Masaka City’s Flying Gold.

Now, with the appointment of NRM cadres and people from the first family to the appointments board of universities, some of us have a reason to worry. My first worry is that appointments like Karugire’s could negatively affect the kind of researches one conducts for fear that when it comes to appointment to a position or promotion to another rank, some research areas could spell doom for the applicant.

Personally, I conduct research on governance issues as represented in literary and musical texts. In this regard,
I have published papers on Bobi Wine’s ‘Tuliyambala Engule’, Dr Stella Nyanzi’s Facebook work (particularly that which got her imprisoned and later exiled) and on electoral violence, to mention but a few areas.

I also conduct research on Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s work, including the novel, The Greedy Barbarian and memoir, Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous, both books very critical of President Museveni’s reign.

With Karugire, President Museveni’s son-in-law becoming the chair of the Makerere Appointments Board, I have reason to worry if my research will receive fair hearing when I apply for promotion to the rank of full professor, since it comments on people that the regime in power considers criminals, thanks to the abhorrent Computer Misuse Act and the amendment that was passed in 2022.

I know that Uganda’s democratic space shrinks every year, but I did not expect that a time would come, and very soon, when the appointments board of any university, leave alone a prestigious one like Makerere University, would be chaired by someone from the first family. Not that there is something particularly bad about Karugire, but the self-censorship that we are likely to see soon.

The question I am struggling with is this: Under Edwin Karugire as chair, Makerere University Appointments Board, what will happen to those of us who conduct research on the people that the regime in power considers enemies – people like Bobi Wine, Dr Stella Nyanzi, and Kakwenza Rukirabashaija?

The writer is an associate professor of Literature at Makerere University. He is a former president of Ugandan PEN, a former board member, PEN International.