All isn’t well at Makerere University Business School (Mubs) where chaos and clique formation has reigned since the controversial ouster of founding Principal Prof Wasswa Balunywa at the beginning of June last year.
Prof Moses Muhwezi, the Deputy Principal who was designated to keep serving as Ag Principal, has been rejected by a significant section of staff who fault him for not doing enough to check on the growing sectarianism based on tribal and religious considerations.
Mubs has 8 Faculty Deans and Deputies who ascend office through elections. But these days, staff vote basing on religion and ethnicity as was manifested last week when academic staff members at the Faculty of Entrepreneurship rejected Prof Ernest Abaho in favor of equally capable Prof Isaac Nsereko simply because many of them felt Westerners, considered to be already eating enough, had to be stopped from being the only ones surrounding Ag Principal Muhwezi in the Committee of Deans & Academic Board.
Staff are also stung by the general perception that the Muhwezi administration has seen many staff sidelined simply because they are perceived as either Muslims or Basogas who rose to prominent positions during Prof Balunywa’s tenure which went on from the early 1990s to June last year when he was acrimoniously forced out after the Governing Council had assessed and found him suitable to carry on as Principal.
The Governing Council, chaired by Isaac Ngobi Ngobya, wrote to State House recommending retention but that was disregarded because some powerful actors at the Education Ministry prefer someone else to become Principal. Those aggrieved by this indifference have since ganged up on Prof Muhwezi who they see as someone being imposed on them unfairly since the Governing Council vetted and recommended someone else.
