Africa-Press – Uganda. Makerere University suspended the students’ governing body, the students’ guild, and indefinitely deferred elections after the son of a Member of Parliament was killed in a clash during last-minute campaigns on Thursday.
Betungura Bewatte, a second-year law student at Uganda Christian University (UCU), was killed on Thursday in a fight between FDC and NUP supporters. Three suspects have since been arrested but the killer remains unidentified.
The lawlessness at Uganda’s premier institute of higher learning that resulted in the death of a UCU student must be condemned and stopped. Where is Vice Chancellor
Barnabas Nawangwe’s strong stand and decisiveness on ensuring discipline at Makerere University?
It is embarrassing to see cases of moral decadence precipitating violence at Makerere University, which is supposed to be a training ground for intellectuals and future leaders. There must be law and order.
While some parents have raised scoundrels and completely disregarded the fact that morality begins at home, it is also true that no university or college can achieve its purpose in an environment where indiscipline prevails.
Multitude of studies have shown time and again that most children get involved in undesirable activities because they have not been taught proper moral values. Because some parents are too busy to raise good citizens, what we see nowadays is inability of students to concentrate in class, loss of taught material due to absenteeism, increased dropout rates and rising cases of insolence and belligerence.
Our view is that as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Africa, Makerere needs to fumigate the campus; bring all the perpetrators to book, draft new rules of political engagement without infringing on fundamental rights of students; review security measures at campus and ban night campaigns and stop all forms of intolerance. The people who killed Bewatte and those who instigated the violence at Makerere University must be punished.
The young people seeking political offices across the political spectrum must be reminded about the clean hands doctrine. This is based on the maxim of equity where one “who comes into equity must come with clean hands”.
The people seeking power at all levels must be mindful of the shared obligation to ensure that in whatever we do as a people, nonviolence prevails.
As Martin Luther Jr remarked: Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
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