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Last updated on May 24th, 2024 at 01:03 am
A line must be drawn between issues and personalities. Academic freedom is not a license to misuse academic platforms.
It is not easy to defend an unpopular cause or person in our country these days but let me go ahead and do it anyway.
Makerere University Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe is right to demand answers about the quality or standard of a Constitutional Law exam set for first-year law students that contained a satirical problem question that appears to defame the Speaker of Parliament Anita Among and President Yoweri Museveni.
Instead of faking the names of these real-life political players and the institutions they manage, Dr Busingye Kabumba, the Constitutional law lecturer believed to have set the exam, trend jacked the wave of controversies about these individuals, faked heavily negative facts and uncannily maintained the names of these politicians.
Never mind, he remembered to fake the names of the activists behind the “Uganda Parliament exhibition” social media campaign.
Dr Busingye Kabumba, in my opinion, uttered defamatory statements about Speaker Anita Among and President Yoweri Museveni in his widely circulated exam paper.
I have seen him, in response to a question by a former student’s question about whether Anita Among could sue him for defamation, saying that the defenses of “truth,” “comment on a matter of public interest” and “academic freedom” enshrined in Article 29 of the Constitution – which by the way he once described as an “illusion,” would be available to him.
Maybe.
But what is for sure is that Anita Among or President Museveni never did or said the despicable actions or statements he attributed to them in his exam, casting them as idiots.
Besides, Mr. Kabumba’s infractions, we need to look at the toxic political infiltrations at Makerere Law School.
I have written about this before (see my Article here), following the release of a book authored by deceased former Attorney General Peter Nyombi’s son Mr. Solomon Nyombi, in which he narrates his troubles navigating the toxic culture at Makerere Law School as a son of an “unpopular big man.”
“ One hot Friday afternoon, in my first year at Law School, I sat in class dozing and struggling to pay attention. Suddenly, I felt like a bolt of electricity had passed through my body. One of my lecturers (who Peter had worked with several years before) broke into a monologue about how Peter was trafficking children in the guise of adoption.” Mr. Solomon Nyombi wrote.
“ She spoke with so much assurance and yet she was lying. Never mind the fact that her ravings were totally unconnected to the lecture. All of a sudden, the room felt like a cauldron. I sat rooted to my chair; my eyes trained on her like guns. I could feel beads of sweat rolling down my temples as she continued her tirade. My unease and discomfort were palpable and I could sense that every one of my classmates’ eyes were on me at that moment. They were lapping every word she said like it was gospel truth. I wanted to stand up and give her a piece of my mind but I was afraid.” He went on.
How do we separate the personal opinions, inclinations, biases, and prejudices of lecturers from legitimate course content if not by “moderation” as Prof. Nawangwe is reported to have demanded of Makerere Law School Principal Assoc. Prof. Ronald Naluwairo?
How are we supposed to foster independent thinking of students about issues (political or otherwise) of the day if lecturers are left free to pepper lectures and exams with their prejudices?
As one author wrote about “passing exams in Law School,” the ideological disposition of a lecturer plays a role in the marking of exams and what this means is that students may be forced to toe the lecturer’s line of thinking – for the sake of getting good grades.
Suffice it to say, that most law lecturers are not necessarily authorities of good legal persuasive value.
In my view, the Academic freedom of a student is equally important just like that of the lecturer.
And Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe has a corresponding duty to protect it.
