Abwooli Rujumba Omurungi W’Abasambu, top Don Prof. Venasius Baryamureeba has been lined up to ascend the managerial throne of East Africa’s premier tertiary Institution, Uganda’s cherished but neglected 87-year old Makerere University Kampala.
The other suitors for the throne are Mathematics Professor Livingstone Luboobi, the senior most in age at a towering 63 years, Celebrated Economist Professor John Dumba- Sentamu and everyone’s Ndugu, Faculty of Social Sciences charming Strongman Professor Kirumira Edward. They all present commendable credentials and an immensely rich marketplace of ideas, plans and aspirations for our beleaguered tower of Ivory.
Professor Livingstone Luboobi has presided over the institution since the year of their Lord 2004 when he inherited regalia from the retiring Prof. John- Mary Sebuwufu. There is probably nothing that has served to summarise the tenure and legacy of the good old Muganda Professor than his own words of lamentation to a certain media house.
The said Leading daily of Uganda quoted the Mathematician’s words to the letter when in one of those numerous interviews he accorded the fourth estate described the University as ‘being in state of limbo’!
As precise as a mathematician can be, the courtly professor had accomplished, with the artistry of a bard, what other scholars of name and fame like Prof. Mahmood Mamdani had failed to describe in heaps and leaves of paper! Professor Mamdani has written a deeply resourceful book about the trials and tribulations of Makerere, Scholars in the Market place.
During the tenure of Livingstone, we have seen the Public University degenerate into a profitable bazaar where students and parents have been turned into customers in the purchase of knowledge and the University into a derogatorily capitalist hub where the whims and aspirations of the poor peasant have been wantonly sidelined.
Education in itself being a formidable tool for social transformation as my friend and comrade Nuwagaba Vincent prefers to aptly put it, the share of blame for this discriminatory design can also be deservedly apportioned to Yoweri Museveni’s thieving Junta that has deliberately refused to learn how best to lay priorities!
During the same period of time, the University has been battered with deeply embarrassing scandals! It was under the nose of Professor Livingstone Luboobi that a handsome amount of the Peasant Parent’s remittances were irresponsibly swindled by one of his Deputies who oversaw the building of a Ushs 2 billion ‘Berlin wall’ around the University that crumbled as fast as it was built. It was not the victorious conquest of capitalism over socialism that prompted this uncommon happening this time round but the lack of cement. The magnanimous wall, it is reported, was supported with only sand!
This is not to cite all those ‘small scandals’, contented oiled throats and financial misappropriation of the University monies that are yet to see the light of day!
Academic research during this gray haired’s reignal years has progressed no better, the quality of the products that Makerere has been churning out is deplorably worrying leave alone wicked scenes of Professors copying from their Student’s theses! All in all Makerere has tested Luboobi and found amiss in him the steel that is a prerequisite if one is to successfully occupy such a demanding office!
However on the other side of the scale is Professor Venasius Baryamureeba. At 39, he is one of the youngest Professors at Makerere and the Dean Faculty of computing and I.T, one of those faculties considered ‘wet’ if am to scrounge the jargon of my good friend Osuna George Jerome.
Baryamureeba found the Faculty of computing an impoverished lone traveller at Makerere and gave it company to where it proudly stands today. At the faculty of I.T, he found a vacant plot and has built it to the sky let alone winning for it lucrative contracts with such reverered I.T barons like Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and Michael Dell of the Dell group.
Makerere’s Faculty of computing and I.T is a model of I.T excellence in Africa all over. In fact, Baryamureeba is such a true patriot that he has put his country’s flag flying high on the mast of I.T excellence the world over than those that purport to love this country when the taxpayers offertory they so mercilessly swindle is counted in billions! Recently in June, his services were accoladed with the prestigious recognition of being one of the 2009 world’s top 100 Dons for his service to the I.T sector and the globalisation drive.
I stand to be corrected if there has been any scam and money laundering cited at his Faculty!
Rujumba, Uganda and in particular Makerere University has a prolific talent in Dr. Baryamureeba that has to be tapped and harnessed to its fullest. At his age (39), he has accomplished for his Country, himself and Makerere what others die longing to achieve. He is a rabid performer, a brisk administrator and a horrendously multi- talented academic. In fact, he is like a comet that appears once in a century.
Let us take pride in such men with astonishing endowments as Baryamureeba whilst they still command vigour. Makerere deserves industry, proficiency in administration, connections and energy to recapture her long lost crown of virtue as ‘The Harvard of Africa’ and all these admirable qualities I find in the man with the signature gap in his teeth.
