Leaders and students from several Ugandan universities attended the annual Julius Nyerere Youth festival which took place at Yusuf Lule CTF auditorium and Julius Nyerere Leadership Centre, both at Makerere University, on April 15 and 16, 2025.
With theme, ‘Our heritage, our voices: Culture, innovation and servant leadership’, the festival was in celebration of Julius Nyerere’s 103rd birthday; Nyerere was born on April 13, 1922, in Butiama, northern Tanzania.
Interestingly, Nyerere, one of Africa’s most celebrated leaders and statesmen, shares the birth year with Makerere University, where he later studied Education and also served as university chancellor.
Graced by Tanzania’s high commissioner to Uganda Maj Gen Paul Kisesa Simuli, Nyerere’s granddaughter Mariateresa David Mwamakula and youth delegations from Tanzania, it also attracted current and former student leaders from many Ugandan institutions of higher learning, entrepreneurs and innovators.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
The keynote address, ‘Shaping the next generation of servant leaders: Mwalimu Nyerere’s lega-cy’ was delivered by Eva Mulema Matsiko, chief of party, RTI International, who challenged the youth to emulate Nyerere’s legacy of servant leadership and its tenets of humility, hard work, integrity, unity and humanism so as to attain dignity, mastery, unity and prosperity.
She argued that every era has its unique problems and battles, and that Nyerere was a great leader because he understood the pertaining problems of his time, especially the total liberation of Africa from colonialism.
Considering the global instability worsened by Donald Trump’s second presidency, Matsiko called for Africa’s self-reliance and crafting of useful and dependable alliances so as to wean herself off dependency.
Matsiko stressed the importance of good leadership having a vision, integrity, challenging injustices, being custodian of heritage, practising self-reliance and authenticity, and inspiring positive change. She called for formation of think tanks and respecting their findings and recommendations by politicians and other implementers.
Talent must be identified and promoted rather than stifling and malicing, offer scholarships and trainings, provide opportunities to all people to participate, shun tokenism and open doors for the masses, and be ready to pay the price involved.
The packed-activity programme included keynote addresses, discussant panels, arts and innovation exhibition, music and dance, storytelling and poetry recitations, pitch challenge, a mentorship walk and networking.
The walk, titled, ‘Walking in Nyerere’s footsteps’ aimed to engage youth entrepreneurs and leaders in real-time dialogue, posing and answering key questions on finance, saving, startups, innovation and financial management.
The mentorship walks around the university included visiting memorial spots key in the life of Nyerere around Makerere campus such as his hall of residence (currently called Complex hall), the iconic Ivory Tower main administration block, the Nyerere bust testifying to his having been the chancellor of the University of East Africa for seven years (1963-1970), and the college of Education and External Studies where he earned his teacher’s diploma.
The mentorship walk was flagged off by Prof Tarsis Kabwegyere who urged the participants not to treat it as just a physical walk but, rather, as an intellectual and metaphysical walk into the universe for divine guidance, stressing that Nyerere was actually still here present in their midst.
NYERERE WORLD LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE
Kabwegyere disclosed that he is involved in the establishment of a Julius Nyerere World Leadership Institute in Dodoma, Tanzania. The institute has already acquired 100 acres of land.
The institute will serve not only Africa but the whole world, as Nyerere had been a global leader in many capacities such as the first chairman of the South Commission.
He described Nyerere as a great thinker, practitioner and leader, a global giant who was both a scholar and writer, an anti-colonial torchbearer and emancipator who left behind a philosophy of global peaceful leadership that the institute will elucidate and disseminate.
Other speakers mentioned Nyerere’s respect for and promotion of familyhood, African cultural authenticity and collective responsibility, considering his policy of Ujamaa which turned Tanzania, a country of 120 ethnic groups into a united nation with Kiswahili as the national language.
He was praised for being a good communicator and a mobiliser who put action to his ideas and beliefs. Nyerere lived a moral and simple life, not accumulating wealth or pomp. He is, therefore, a moral teacher; no surprise that the Catholic Church is considering him to become a saint.
He boasts several honorary doctorates. His leadership of the non-aligned movement led to his becoming the chairman of the South Commission and the South Centre. Nyerere’s regard for youths and women was also frequently pointed out; granddaughter Mwamakula read excerpts from two of his books titled Women and Africa of Today and Tomorrow.