President Museveni has said Makerere University will be opened as soon as possible to allow students to study after university council requested for its immediate closure on Tuesday.
The closure of the university came after students’ strike over lecturers’ failure to teach them as they continued to hold a sit-down strike over their unpaid 9-months arrears amounting to Shillings 28 billion.
In a press conference on Wednesday night at Kawumu state lodge in Makulubita Sub County in Luweero district, Museveni condemned the strike but vowed to see to it that Uganda’s biggest university is opened soon.
“We want to open the university as soon as possible such that the children don’t miss their studies,” said Museveni.
And he added that there is no money to cater for the salary increment for Makerere teaching staff but students and parents would not be the ones to suffer instead.
“We are not refusing to pay the arrears of those lecturers but they should wait, because we are doing other things also. Now when you have got people who’ve got an attitude of ‘if you don’t do this today, I am going to okwediima (strike)’. That is not a good way, that is not a good way. Nanyini kintu tasanyalaza (the owner of something is its biggest protector). If I do farming, I cannot say that; because rain has delayed, I have abandoned everything. Rain has delayed here, but we are patient, we continue, now it has come”, he said.
Yesterday, students were ordered to vacate university premises and hostels.
Students are disappointed that they’re losing studying time so soon into the academic year, which started in August.
They say they’ve already lost a month as it was non-teaching staff who were striking before the lecturers.
Since its establishment in 1922, Makerere University has been home to award-winning writers, academic, Nobel Prize winners, and presidents who have studied, taught or resided at the institution. The university, which is spread over three campuses, offers 134 undergraduate programs and 135 master’s degrees.
