WHY I WOULD VOTE FOR ABIRIGA IN 2016

The afternoon is tense with dust and a crowd of people starts to swell in the least affluent Tongilo business area of Arua, from a distant mosque the singsong call to prayer shoots through the buzzing town, some youth are lined up on one of the streets, chewing khat and indulging in drunkenness and on another a group of meretricious boda-boda riders hoot incessantly ahead of 30 or so women most of them draped in kitenges emerging from one of the streets chanting ‘Abiriga oyee’ and ‘NRM oyee’ slogans over and over again. Ibrahim Abiriga it is understood plans to run for the Arua municipality member of parliament seat come 2016, the year many local pundits predict Arua will properly evaluate its politicians and librate the performers and non-performers and when that time of reckoning comes, be sure to find the controversial Abiriga’s name on the ballots.

Maj. retired Abiriga is a man who is known widely for his frankness than his exploits with the gun, after having been appointed the Resident District Commissioner of Arua by President Museveni in 2008, the die-hard NRM supporter is no stranger to contravery, in his tenure at the helm of government business in Arua he clashed, allegedly assaulted and even had many political nemesis arrested for reasons as scrimpy as challenging him at a radio talk show.

Not much is known about Abiriga’s past but I understand the then Capt. Abiriga was a member of the defunct West Nile Bank Front rebel outfit that terrorized the west Nile region in the 1990’s. After hanging up his gun he was quickly absolved and integrated into the UPDF at the rank of the captain, His love for the ruling NRM didn’t go unnoticed by the powers that be, he rose through the ranks to become the notorious RDC that many know today. He has a knack for following orders just like any soldier would be and his love for courting controversy is an open invitation for scrutiny; anybody would at one point love to assess the performance of their leaders, wouldn’t you?

According to Groucho Marx, politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies, whereas the former is a superlative befitting Abiriga, the latter is an exaggeration considering that he is a man who delivers and hardly minces his words. Corruption is everywhere, and fighting this vice needs not anti-corruption laws and institution but rather honest leaders with the attitude and conduct befitting of a leader of people. For many times in his tenure Abiriga demonstrated that he has a knack for identifying and uprooting the evil vice. In 2012 Abiriga openly castigated the police CID of Arua for failing to investigate and arrest the then D.E.O Nicolas Tembo on mismanagement of UPE funds for a local school. Quite frankly it takes a fella with ‘balls’ to taunt a corrupt government official.

Many critics contend that Abiriga’s albatross is his frankness and no nonsense attitude, his rebuttal of the religious leaders about restoration of term limits did as much harm to his reputation as there could be, He cleverly cited the bible and the Qur'an as books that don’t have any mention of presidential term limits and wondered why the religious leaders hold a lot of power and reign supreme over their followers. Enter Atiku Bernard the popular and much loved Member of parliament for Ayivu county, Details had emerged that Gen Salim Saleh intended to grab land in Barifa Forest, The former quickly organized his constituents and a demonstration was in the offing, however the police did quite a job quelling it, Although the actions and the comments that followed were un desirable, Abiriga demonstrated what few politicians can do, talk big and walk the talk, anyway the rest is history.

Abiriga is widely viewed to the less privileged members of the population as a man of the people, often politicians ignore the masses when elected into office, Democracy is an expensive venture because all the time a politician or a party spends a reasonable amount of time and resources trying to demonize their opponents with a view of selling themselves as the most competent, this strains the politicians and they out of utter frustration shun their electorate only to appear when the polls are near, in other wards in democratic Africa voters are exploited based on their ignorance and poverty,  Whether Abiriga will be like them remains to be seen but I think in his tenure he’ll attract a lot of support from  the ruling NRM government to Arua, He should be able to identify opportunities for the youth and the elderly.

Many a politician in this era will coin a language, for lack of a better word we will call it lies, they will make it sound truthful, in this political language they’ll say anything that will get them to parliament, some will promise dams and others will tell tales of how they will build hospitals and schools as if it is a mean feat, the few wealthy will have medical clinics organized to treat the sickly citizen’s only to fall back to their luxurious apartments in Kampala, considering his distaste for vanity atleast a lot of it, Abiriga will tell you what he’ll do and that’s it.

The middle class is on the rise in Arua, the social class is widening thanks to the entrepreneurial opportunities in the nearby DRC and Sudan, This will be Abiriga’s Achilles heel because he is known to find fault with the technocrats and educated folk, he will find a lot of resistance in his bid to become the next member of parliament for Arua Municipality, Sometimes for a community to develop the elite must re-examine their conscience and understand and accept the uniqueness of everybody and circumstances prevailing, this will pave way for positive criticism and upsurge of developmental ideas.

God luck Maj. Retired Ibrahim Abiriga, in case you choose to represent Arua Municipality in 2016 be sure you have my one vote.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI:‘MES’ IS THIS THE DEATH OF INTELLECTUALISM??

If you are out there and you still believes that the school of engineering is a hub of intellectualism, or whether this institution is a fountain of knowledge, if you wonder if the students here are a beacon of admiration, then you should think again, considering what transpired at the MES open debate in the conference hall on Wednesday 20^th March 2013, I fear for the worst.

When the Electoral commission decided it was honorably enough to subject the MES candidates to an open debate, It was clear to all of us that a moment had arrived for us to chart out a new course of democracy, a moment where the choices of the students would reflect the commitment and dedication of our leaders but to my chagrin a dark cloud had darted our sky, Hooliganism and tales of indecency had replaced political maturity that was bound to ignite a lot of intellectual feelings and debate.

The Engineering society is engulfed in a crisis unprecedented, from concerns of financial impropriety to apparent neglect of the citizenry, a nearly flawed leadership transformation process where some candidates found out very late that they did not qualify, all these are consequence of incompetence on the part of some, but also the failure by the students collectively to make strong choices and decisions. As we make considerations on how to work closely with the leadership we elected to steer us into this new era, we should recognize with profoundness the willingness of these leaders to find meaning in something greater than themselves, that willingness to forgo lectures because one is coordinating a students workshop, the courage to challenge the college administration’s very unpopular policies and the hope that the silent voices of the least outspoken students have a louder voice tucked somewhere in them to speak for us, such is the MES we all want.

It should be understood that it is not only the skill and vision of the leaders in the bamboo house that has for the very many years propelled MES to its full functionality but rather the ideology of its members, that a First year Telecommunication Engineering student can come up with an award-winning project or that a final year Electrical Engineering student doesn’t only look up at UMEME for a salaried job but desires to be a job creator themselves, such determination has and is what the society desires.

Incompetence of the Electoral Commission

The recently concluded guild elections if anything should have been a credible source of edification on how a free and fair election should have been, an electoral process where no candidate is above the rule of law, where the slightest divergence from ethics is not tolerated, but such was different from the CEDAT electoral commission, lapses in management of the electoral process where observed when the commissioners failed miserably in their attempts to prevent rowdy supporters of rival candidates from being a nuisance in the open debate, campaigns on the polling day at the polling stations, interference and distraction of voters on the polling day and concerns about cheating and conspiracy to deny the students a chance to choose the candidates they want after it turned out that the number of people who voted exceeded the votes cast for some candidates, however the commission scored highly for the well made shirts and blouses the commissioners wore on election day

The unusual spectra which occurred when the organizers of the debate nearly stopped one candidate Mr. Onam Namakoola from taking to the podium because he failed to put money in the culture box should not have happened, such acts of impunity should not be tolerated because an institutionally organized open debate is a not an avenue to exercise financial might to sustain incumbent leaders’ greed but a battle ground for ideology and brilliant intellectualism as opposed to populism

Congratulations, Mr. President

The term opportunity cost is widely considered to be an alternative forgone every time a choice is made and in the recently concluded MES polls, the alternative foregone for you Mr. President was immense, for some it meant disagreements with friends and acquaintances while for others it was a case of conflicting loyalty. This cost then was paid by the more than 70%  students who overwhelmingly voted for you and now is shouldered by the rest of the Engineering fraternity, we all contend that the challenges you face are many and real, and that they are not about talking and authoring long letters on notice boards but folding your shirt sleeves and getting to work, from the MES afternoons to integration of innovativeness and earning us back the trust we vested in you because the affairs of the MES demand for a compulsory effort to transform the society into an admired institution where integrity and accountability are inevitable.

To the entire new executive, we are proud that you emerged victorious and gave us options to choose from as Engineering students and for those that didn’t win; we say you triumphed in your pursuit of the truth and of democracy. This is my debate.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI: OPEN LETTER TO MY LECTURER

Dear lecturer,

I have always agreed that the remarkable story of success that is, Makerere University has been propelled by the energy and built by the hands and resolve of people who have always asked hard questions that we the very students asked the moment we decided to take up the challenge of this great nation when we choose to study at the ivory tower-such is what distinguishes a student from Makerere University from a student of any other university like kyambogo, Ndejje or Nkozi, this desire has enabled the university to roll out the first home-made vehicle in the name of Kiira EV, led to the development of cost effective sanitary pads in the name of MAKpads, and the beginning of a new era of un-precendented technological advancement in the country to mention but a few and just last semester celebrations rocked the University when it was commemorating its 90^th birthday and indeed we ask what will be spoken of this great hill at its 100^th anniversary.

It has been  two weeks now since we last saw you in class, I recall very well with profoundness that day you made a decision not to deliver lectures to our class because the class was way beyond what you are supposed to handle in terms of numbers, and further more because the administration had failed to avail you with the necessary facilities for laboratory study, by standing up and doing what many lecturers could not do or better still by walking where angels could not trod-to walk out on 140 students or more is hilarious and admirable, to me it shows that you are mindful about the quality of people that get trained through your hands, however attention is brought to you to reflect on the plight of the student that rightfully deserves this knowledge because they paid a penny or so for this education they badly need.

Whereas it would be unrealistic not to delve into the issues that prompted you into abandoning our class, I feel mention should be made of some of the likely causes of this problem.

Last year it is estimated that more than 40 students failed this course unit and were required to retake the course the next time it was offered which is this year, why do students really get retakes? Three reasons are extended to this argument, firstly that the students cannot comprehend the entails of the course unit; secondly that the lecturers are not good enough to be understood well by the students vis-à-vis the mode of dispensation or that the environment created is not convenient enough for such a course because I refuse to believe there could be such a thing as a hard course unit- a just cause to review the education status quo.

It should also be understood that innovations made right here in the College of Engineering, Design Art and Technology will one day impact on the life of people in great proportions, an engineering student who publishes a paper about the relevance of using rice husks as an additive in pavement construction could attract the attention of a certain road engineer who's working on a similar design in the Works Ministry and a professor who makes a breakthrough in developing geo-technical data could save hundreds from mudslides in Bududa and such is what the nation expects from us, infact everybody at Makerere University.

Therefore the hours you spend with us in class not only have the potential to improve the lives of students and their families but they also offer the nation a great opportunity to develop new ideas that will lead to creation of new jobs and development of this country as the motto states ‘we build for the nation’ and by getting to class, you're doing your nation a great honor

Think about what the nation was like only thirty years ago, when there were about 100 students in College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology, then Faculty of Technology and there was only the old technology  building, back then, the big challenge was just to sit through class up to your final year and if you could graduate or not you would be assured of a job but the world has surely changed since then and today even a first class degree doesn't guarantee a job and as if that is not enough the cost of acquiring education here has risen by leaps and bounds.

In light of your concern I believe it is paramount for a student wishing to be a relevant engineer to acquire the necessary theoretical and near practical skills provided for by the university that way we will be sure that new opportunities will be created amidst enormous competition because Universities like kyambogo ,Ndejje and UCU are churning out more qualified and technically able engineering graduates who can compete directly with ease in this generation, the latter posses greater comparative advantage over the former and if we need Makerere University to stay on top, we'll need great commitment by the students, lecturers and every stake holder to better and improved theoretical education and practical training relevant for the demands of this generation.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI: WE WILL TAKE BACK OUR ‘MES’

The school of engineering will soon find out if it will be the proud academic abode of the next guild president of Makerere University in today’s Guild polls in what is seen by many as an opportunity for science and technology students to adventure and set sail on the political scene previously dominated by social and political scientists, lawyers and economists et el.

The fact that the school of engineering boasts of six contenders for the position of GRC where only two persons are required to represent the constituency in the August house is an indication that interest is greatly shifting to the previously shunned political leadership

Makerere University has positioned itself as one of the best universities in Africa in the recent past with the web-metrics survey indicating an upward improvement to the 8th best university in Africa, and if the recent hub of innovation is something to go by, its College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology is only second to none in fostering innovation, invention and human resource enrichment, an ingredient that is greatly lacking in many of the graduands churned out from many Ugandan universities.

Makerere Engineering Society has registered tremendous success in linking students to the outside world through exhaustive campaigns to widely market the students however the efficacy of some of these policies need to be re-thought 

MES AFTERNOONS

These social interactive sessions organized in the conference hall were like a breath of fresh air on a hot afternoon, sections of all engineering students would assembly to engage in discussions and listen to keynote speakers while being entertained and refreshed at the same time, but the occurrence of these famous afternoons is as rare as seeing Professor Baryamureba on campus these days

PROJECT FUNDING

Last term at the CEDAT open day complains arose out of the manner in which the then project coordinator financially supported student projects, in some instances a mean looking gentleman would walk over to your project site at the tent and ask an exhibitor how much the project cost and would then proceeded to hand them any amount prescribed at their discretion.

ENGINEERING JOURNAL

Many student projects vanish in thin air moments after exhibition, this calls for a forum that will serve as a platform for showcasing the numerous skills and techniques transformed from theoretical knowledge obtained in class, therefore an engineering journal or magazine would come in handy and this would be a positive step towards marketing the engineering brand of Makerere university

The plight of an engineering student who subscribes to the society is highlighted in our non ceasing desire to see the best service directed towards the students cause and whoever is interested in any leadership in the society whether it being at the helm or in the lower echelons should be able to harmonize their position with the needs and expectations of the student they serve

Furthermore the leadership should be made more and easily accessible as well as accountable to encourage dialogue and interaction or else we will always roar with one voice ‘we will take back our MES’

 

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI, THE FROG CROAKING AT YOUR BACKYARD, GIVE HIM A FAIR HEARING

Dear Bamugunki,

There is an old African proverb which says that when a man dips his fingers to the bottom of a bowl, he is not looking for soup but for something else, That African saying conforms to the fact that the frogs leaping in our backyards don’t come to sing our children bedtime lullabies but escaping from what they may perceive as a dangerous threat to their habitant, the number of amphibians has increased drastically from my freshmen days to today around the dwellings of kikoni and what captivates me is that we don’t give them a fair hearing or perhaps listen attentively to their croaky complaints.

Whereas I might have had an opportunity to grow up around the ‘Kinyarwanda’ swamps in Entebbe and had a beautiful experience as children, we would hunt for lung fish in the swamp mud, then go on an expeditious collection spree of rare and nutritious assortment of fruits growing at the swamp edges, before returning home with full burgeoning stomachs heaping praises on our adventurous nature, this trend is no more among the kids in that area because the ‘Kinyarwanda’ swamp is eaten up by semi-permanent houses cropping up at supersonic speed , It  can be argued that toads and frogs of our childhood days had strong energetic croaks than their relatives of today, I don’t have the scientific facts but for those of you that have lived long enough can bear me witness.

In my kikoni abode just off the dirty stream of water that wells from the slums of Nakulabye through the swampy areas just after the new grand global hotel and the kikoni police post through a labyrinth of complicated housing units passing under the refurbished kikoni-kasubi road all the way to the swamps below Lady Nafisa hostel is a revelation of an ecosystem failure where species of all kinds especially the water dwelling are struggling to cope up with the increasing population pressure exerted by humans consequently affecting their natural habitant.

Sometimes when the rains fall, many a village farmer will be exhilarated at the prospect of resuming their usual farming schedules but don’t tell that to a dweller in bwaise, at that time of the year the media is awash with news of flooding and collapse of structures due to water movements around the kawempe bwaise areas, this unfriendliness of the water which lead to humorists coining yet another moniker ‘water is life only if you don’t live in bwaise’ has been attributed to the rampant settlement in swampy areas leading to the distortion of the water flow pattern and thus flooding.

I believe this is time to increase societies moral obligation towards the environment right from elementary schools for instance the context of learning in our educational institutions should change to make the environment an integral part of the normal teaching in all the subjects from secondary all through university rather than as an isolated course unit in a university program for environmental and engineering students. The environment provides the basis for life and is a major determinant of the quality of life and therefore it should be part of all education so that all citizens understand that we are an integral part of nature and that we co-exist with all the other species in the biosphere.

Practices such as trashing in public facilities or damping in streams and wetlands and even construction of structures in wetlands can be avoided in future by educating the younger generation on environment related issues.

The National Environment Management Authority(N.E.M.A) on the bigger part should be capacitated to indiscriminately prevent would be settlers in the swamps from doing so and if the so called investor as many would love to call them refuse to heed NEMA’S guidance should have their structures abolished and the wetlands re-gazzeted, or even prosecute offenders this way the country may increase the quality of life of its citizens, improve on the environment and most importantly energize our ambitions to becoming a first world country by 2050 after all first world countries take good care of the environment, don’t they?

The project to reclaim the lost green cover from greedy patrons of this country needs a deliberate intervention from the government and all stake holders, appointing a serious executive officer at NEMA who will employ a no no-sense attitude towards enforcing policy, who will always be accountable to the appointing authority and will not bow to pressure at all times, otherwise Madam Jenifer Musisi has set precedence and in so doing we will be giving our amphibian neighbor’s a  hope of a bright new era, who knows we will not need to send our grand-children to the Wild Life Education Centre (zoo) to see frogs and toads in just 100 years from now.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI, A UNIVERSITY DEGREE IS SO CHEAP,WHY ARE YOU STILL STUDYING?

Dear Bamugunki,

On Monday after a tip off from one lecturer, the police raided the senate which is the highest academic decision making body of Makerere University and arrested two academic registrar’s employees for fraud, tempering with students marks and alteration of academic documents, word has it that a certain lecturer while going about his business in town bumped into a former student who had  failed some core courses in a comfy office, the lecture knowing that no one would be employed to do that job without a good class of degree smelt a rat, a fat one at that and decided to cross check his records to see if the re-known student had passed the courses they picked retakes in, to his chagrin the student had not passed and was not qualified for graduation and immediately blew the whistle.

The police later on realized that students conspired with the officials in the senate to alter marks on the former’s transcripts before graduation at a fee, according to information I obtained from friends who I would not name, it is most likely that the entire process of reversing your grade could cost one million Uganda shillings or less.

The average cost of educating a university graduate in Uganda stands a staggering seven zero figure, at the college of engineering design art and technology a student pursuing an engineering degree parts with about three million shillings tuition only in a year and for the four years they are studying their course they would have paid close to thirteen million only tuition and functional fees neglecting the cost of feeding, accommodation, academic secretarial work, scholastic materials to mention but a few.

The grading system in Makerere is such that any marks obtained below 50 is a failure and necessitates a retake, the time required to prepare for a course and write and pass examinations with a grade of at least 70% is immense and that plainly speaking is no mean feat, and if I chanced on an opportunity to have my grades changed to only A’s and B’s I would have no whims at all, after all everyone in the country does the same, from learnt professors to laymen.

I would rather part with about seven million to have a first class university degree in Business Administration and save myself from the stress that comes with writing seemingly trivial tests, the unproductive time while commuting from my kikoni abode to the overcrowded class room at COBAMS, then I would seek for a job and thereafter enroll for a short certificate course if necessary for my job and earn my monthly hefty sums while my colleagues are left sprawling the university in pursuit for their hard earned degrees, I am quite sure companies do not conduct back ground checks on their employees that way I may be able to survive on my job without any trouble after all almost everybody in the country at any one moment has tried to earn a living by dubious and thieving methods, from government officials, bank executives, restaurateurs, students and even taxi conductors.

My greatest disappointment comes in at the failure by the university authorities to organize a press conference to do a public image campaign aimed at re furbishing the much tainted image of the Harvard of Africa, sacking the Academic registrar or even the vice chancellor academics taking responsibility of the blame otherwise the world over would have a derailed perspective of the ivory tower as a training ground for dishonest, lazy and uninspired graduates who lack the capacity to create an impact in their respective areas of study.

Comrade you know how hard it is to come to study at Makerere university, you spent quite a number of barrels of midnight oil to peddle the ivory tower dream, you shunned quite a lot of those night clubs drink-ups and studied really hard to make it to the epitome of the intellectual pyramid and yet realize that is even easier at times if you can teach yourself how to do things the Makerere way, so why are you still studying hard after knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel, maybe because you are one of the few people left in this our country who appreciate the price of hard work and believe in the thrill of honest achievement.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND IN KIKONI,THE 60% TUITION POLICY IS DISCRIMINATIVE

Dear Bamugunki,

In line with the College of Engineering,Design,Art and Technology's college registrar’s letter dated 24^th September 2012 in which he stated that all private sponsored students in the college where to complete payments of 60% of their tuition before the end of this month that is September for them to be eligible to undertake tests and continuous assessment tests,I find the greatest compelling force to write to your my dear friend.

With great disappointment i clutch my pen between by sweaty fingers and i pull out my old Budget book that contains Dr.Bennie Mangeni's ICT summaries and search through until i find some empty pages to vent my frustration on,The private students fraternity in the college condemns in unequivocal terms the discrimination exhibited at this award winning college of the great Makerere University considering the fact that students at other colleges namely CoBAMS ,Health sciences etc continue to write their tests and continuous assessment without any whims.

The majority of the students in the university are privately sponsored students who rely on their parents and relations for tuition to pursue their studies, this move will be a pain in the neck of the students because this is a time when many parents are struggling to keep up with soaring prices in a pretty doggy economy.

The guild president in his earlier communications to the student body stated that the new vice chancellor professor Ddumba Ssentamu had okayed the idea of putting the 60% tuition policy on hold for this semester as it was found out that the policy was enacted in 2005 not last year contrary to popular belief. Makerere University has time immemorial offered its students a great chance to exercise their freedoms and liberties and it is in this regard that we find it necessary to clench our fists in great opposition towards this callous discrimination therefore we do hope the college conducts itself in complete harmony with the rest of the university because it is not an autonomous institution from Makerere University.

The news that the Chancellor had appointed an understanding senile Professor to preside over the Makerere populance was like a sigh of relief to me, I hurriedly kept my ears open for as long as i had the news anchor at K-fm read that 'Dumba was the new Baryamureba' but this time around iam beginning to regret why instead of solve physics puzzles I was eagerly waiting to hear that news. Friend with the changing tides, I am afraid the university will come out tough next term though and hit us perennial late payers like a hungry villager smash a mosquito feeding on his skinny flesh.