The Makerere Phoenix will rise from the flames and pestilence

When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. Those are the thoughts of a Shakespearean character who feels boxed in on every side. They might as well be the feelings of an East African, especially a Makererean, just now.

First, came the locusts. Then the coronavirus struck. When this started inflicting and killing us with its Covid-19 fangs, we found ourselves quarantined, interned and locked down, for our own safety. We thought it would be a short-haul solution to the problem, and we would soon return to our normal lives.

Wrong we were, and this very weekend, Ugandans learnt that many of the anti-Covid-19 measures they have endured over the past six months would continue for a considerable time to come.

One little bit of consolation was that schools and universities, including Makerere, would partly re-open in October, for finalist classes to complete their courses. Then Makerere broke out.

I first heard of the inferno engulfing the “Ivory Tower”, Makerere’s iconic Main Building, in a BBC radio report early on Sunday morning. The British broadcaster factually mentioned that Makerere, my home for many years, was one of Africa’s oldest and most prestigious universities.

It is impossible to describe the emotions that hearing, and a little later seeing, the colossal fire engulfing and consuming that “ageless” edifice aroused in the many witnesses to this tragedy.

Makerere Tower

I have mentioned in these columns that I almost literally grew up in the shadow of that august grey Makerere Tower with its ever-regularly chiming clock. I may not be able to see it from Gayaza, where I live. B­ut five miles down the road, as you approach Kampala from the northeast, you can see it in all its glory, as indeed you can from most major approaches to the city.

Set firmly atop Makerere, one of the highest of Kampala’s proverbial nine hills, the Main Building and its stout tower were obviously designed to lift people’s eyes and hearts up towards the lofty heights of wisdom and knowledge.

Built between the end of the 1930s and the early 1940s, the three-floored building with a cavernous basement, housing the archives and the university printery, is right in the centre of the “historical skyline” of the campus.

The older generations of Makerereans, those of Mkapa, Ngugi, Micere Mugo and even my own, did not call the structure “Ivory Tower”. The elitist connotations were alien to our growing egalitarian and socialist consciousness. But those who came after us saw no problems with the moniker, and so “Ivory Tower” the icon became until today.

Anyway, that is enough of the narrative. The 100-year old Makerere story is many-splendored, and it can get quite nostalgic. Surprisingly, I know of no full-fledged narrative of it by an East African Makererean. The best-known Makerere histories are by Britons and Americans.

One is by Kenneth Ingham, who taught Mwai Kibaki History there in the 1950s, and another, They Built for the Future, is by my former colleague, the late Margaret Macpherson. It tells Makerere’s story from its beginnings in 1922 to 1962. My American friend, Carol Sicherman, has also published Makerere: Becoming an African University, a very well researched and humorously rendered account of the institution.

This brings me back to the recent fire that has struck Makerere and seared the hearts of all who value and care about East African higher education, of which the old school is the mother and supreme icon. Many questions are being asked, and will continue to be asked, about the fire. We will all certainly want to know the cause of the fire, how much damage and destruction it has caused, and the prospects for repair and reconstruction.

I have no answers to any of these questions. But one point has emerged in the aftermath of the fire. Makerere is determined to restore or, if necessary, rebuild the Main Hall. The estimated costs are frighteningly huge, but the University leadership does not seem to be fazed.

Covid-19 restrictions

They have even expressed their determination to reopen the institution to its final-year students in mid-October following the Government’s partial lifting of the covid-19 restrictions. Like the mythical phoenix rising glorious from the ashes of its pyre, Makerere seems to be ready to go forward, “building for the future”, as its motto goes.

The big question for all of us, however, and especially for the Makerereans and their descendants all over the world is, how can we help Makerere restore and reconstruct? I already had the intention to ask Makerereans how they were preparing to celebrate, with their alma mater, Makerere’s Centenary, due in 2022. The University may have its own plans for involving us, but I do not know of them, as of now.

It should, however, not be the duty of Professor Nawangwe, the Vice-Chancellor, or other university officials to court and coax us into involvement in our University’s affairs. It should be our joy and pride to contribute to and actively participate in every aspect of the school’s running and development.

Purely ceremonial

There is a body at Makerere, as at all other universities, supposed to bring together all her alumni and alumnae. This is the Convocation, currently headed by my friend, the eminent historian and dynamic politician, Dr Tanga Odoi. But the activities of this body appear, at present, to be very limited and almost purely ceremonial. Efforts must be made to organise and run it as a dynamic force, with active chapters wherever there are significant numbers of Makerereans, participating actively in the planning, financing, endowing and running of their university.

What I am saying applies to all our universities, private or public, in East Africa. We must discard the mercenary attitude to our schools as just places where we go, do our course, get our degree and go our way, forgetting about the school. My friend, Prof Abasi Kiyimba of Makerere, calls this, in Lusoga, the “mpa nejiire” (nipe changu nende zangu) approach.

When, for example, did you last visit your alma mater?

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and literature; [email protected]