By Our Reporter
City journalist Andrew Mwenda has come under fire because of the comments he made about the strikes staged by Makerere University (MAK) students, protesting a 15% tuition increment.
Students at MAK staged a strike demanding the University Administration to scrap the tuition increment, because several students were continuing to drop out of the University after failing to pay the exorbitant tuition.
However, while commenting about the strike that has since entered day five and left many students injured after being brutalised by security forces, Mwenda tweeted thus;
“Students at Makerere University have an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Students at private universities in Uganda, like UCU and Nkozi, pay much more in fees and get much less in education than Makerere but we don’t here them striking over high fees.”
Mwenda’s comments attracted rebuttal from various Ugandans, many of which he will not find palatable at all. For instance, renowned city lawyer Denis Nyombi of Nyombi & Company Advocates, who is an alumni of the Mukono based Uganda Christian University (UCU),whose standard Mwenda seemed to have down played in his comment to mean as if students who studied are of less brains compared to those who went to MAK, couldn’t hold his anger, he thus went on his social Media platform and wrote; “Dear Andrew Mujuni Mwenda
I attended UCU, something am deeply proud of. To level my former institute as a dispenser of less in education, is an attack on myself personally and other alumnus n alumni of the same institution and its self as such. The mere fact that u find your self inevitably citing UCU as a case study, in your tweet, is evidence that it’s an institution of impact. You have no moral authority to pronounce what’s more or less in education Andrew. If education per se, is used as a conclusive factor in your line of argument.
Be that as it may, allow me to remind you of your past, juxtaposed with the present situation at MAK.
What these MAK students are putting across is what you did expressly put up, at Nyakasura School, when you led a strike in which the school headmaster was chased away from the school.
It’s what you did when you joined Mbarara High School, again you led a strike in which you and other students loaded the headmaster’s property onto a lorry and escorted him straight to his home.
At MAK, you always took lecturers in heated arguments sometimes over small issues.
Lastly i will remind you this. One Friday, in your high school-Mwiri, a debating competition was held between teachers and students. When they failed to find a neutral chairman, Mwenda, then in S.5, you volunteered to be the chairman. You turned out to be a very tough chairman who completely disorganised the teachers.
There was a literature teacher called Kaweileku who was a wonderful debater. But when he came on stage, a student pointed out that the teacher had unkempt hair.
Mwenda, speaking very seriously, you ruled that it was not in order for a teacher to come on stage shabby. You ordered him to go and comb his hair. When the teacher came back, the same student pointed out that the teacher did not have a belt. Again, speaking in no kind terms, you ordered the teacher to go and put on a belt.
When the teacher came back the third time, he was again not looking as smart as you wanted. ‘….As a matter of etiquette, I already warned you to be smart. Since you have failed, I disqualify you from the debate..’ You said. Students celebrated.
Mwenda there is that stage in life, where one has no choice, but to stand up for what they believe is the truth. Before you critic MUK students, for their expression of their discomfort in the tuition rise, remember your past. You would have done more worse, given a chance that the same arose whilst you were a student then.
Yours in the know of your past
Denis NYOMBI
omubwaati”
Another venomous social and political critic, Charles Rwomushana, who is a former operative with the External Security Organisation (ESO) also relieved himself on mortar mouth Mwenda thus; “In any case two wrongs don’t make a right. I was with you in Makerere University and I’m sure you didn’t pay a penny,” Rwomushana reminded Mwenda.
He went on: “You were as needy as I was in Mbarara High School…probably I was better, for I had a Roadmaster bicycle…If you were under Museveni #alnakba, I’m sure you were going to drop out of school. Just simply shut up…You are simply satisfied…We are going to fight probably that may inject you with some sense.”
This is not the first time Mwenda is having his share of the public outrage, on several occasions, the once darling of the public has nearly been torn to threads due to his ‘un palatable’ opinions on public matters.
