Being Prof. Domnic Dipio’s student

What previous administrations at Makerere University understood so well was that whatever the pressures – say from the state – or whatever the realpolitik, they stood with their colleagues.

Especially for vice chancellors, even when they took sides in any departmental/school wrangles, they made sure to protect the integrity and careers of colleagues. It was big-picture thinking because the university had to retain its best brains at all costs.

Presently, while Makerere is not immune to the ruinous politics of Yoweri Museveni (novelist Allan Tacca was definitively accurate in his analysis), we ought to acknowledge the agency of the people running this institution.

This place has become extremely toxic for academic or even normal work. I know, still this is the culture that Yoweri Museveni has nurtured, but actors ought to be reminded that they have agency – as willing players.

Indeed, at the end of the day – as comrade Busingye Kabumba recently reminded us on political torturers – individual actors will never be saved by claims of having acted on behalf of the system. Before writing about my teacher, Prof. Domnic Dipio – or DD as she is endearingly known – I want to spotlight a group of people who have positioned themselves as eternal servants and columnists of the politically- appointed leadership of the university.

Taking a corrosive anti-MUASA posture (the now emasculated trade union that used to fight for academic rights), these people – often spoken about in whispers as ‘the cabal’ – have taken the position there should be no opposition or criticism to whatever University Council (headed by Ms. Lorna Magara) or Appointments Board (headed by Mr. Edwin Karugire) suggests.

Not that they actually love Yoweri Museveni’s emissaries but because they see this as their way to positions. Comrades, you are killing the university we all love. If the recent university rankings should teach us anything, it is that no one prides in a failing university.

A university is not buildings: it is its professors, senior lecturers, and junior lecturers. It is the admins, and ground staff. It is a body that only functions as a whole. The indifference that “one spoke does not bring about the collapse of the entire wheel” is short-sighted because as the Baganda have said, “kamukamu, gwe muganda:”

One by one will fall off, and at the end of the day, there’ll be no one left. a woman of all seasons Dear reader, I am pained by many wonderful academics exiting Makerere University – many personally known to me, and many others I have admired from a distance especially through their illustrious careers.

But Prof. Sis. Domnic Dipio has hit me really hard. Because I know she still wants to serve her university but cannot because of non-scholarly reasons. Not that she should stay on forever; she is at her prime as a scholar and community mobiliser.

I write about her not just because she is my teacher – it is a big reason, of course – but also because she is the absolute embodiment of Makerere University, or the dream of a quintessential scholar and patriot.

Look, DD has excelled tremendously in her field – literature and film studies – but she is a woman of character, a committed and prolific academic. She has won grants for Makerere, appeared at high-level international committees, to the credit of Makerere University.

As testament of her stellar performance, in 2019, she was recognised and thereby appointed by Pope Francis as the Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Culture – a council charged with fostering multiculturalism within and outside the Catholic Church.

This is such as distinct honour not just for her, but for country – and MUK! It is a special honour for the Catholic Church in Uganda. But five years later, Makerere University has decided to force her into retirement at just 63 – notwithstanding her desire to continue working.

In scholarship, 63 is just the prime of a scholar. It is at this level, that a scholar’s work carries weight without citations. As a community mobiliser, DD is busy in the local film industry having directed and produced a number of films and documentaries: Mother-Centred Africa (2019), Rain-making (2016) and Word-Craft (2017), among many others.

In 2007, as her students, I was one of the hands in the shooting of her Dearly Beloved. She has been a judge in several local and international film festivals in regional and international spaces including Zanzibar and Berlin respectively.

In Berlin she was judge at the Ecumenical Film Awards. We don’t have many Ugandans with these CVs and networks. These things take years to build. I cannot count how many Ugandans have benefited from DD’s generous and wonderful hands and connections.

INSIDE DIPLO’S SEMINARS

As one of her first film students – I must have been in the second cohort – I will not forget her energy and enthusiasm. It was not just her empathetic approach to instructing students, but her generosity and ceaselessness were incredible.

With a film department building from scratch, DD often used personal equipment or borrowed from her networks. As you could imagine, feature films tend to be long and sometimes boring. Viewings need more time than what can fit into a lecture hour.

DD would jump out of church on Sunday straight into Seminar Room I where viewings took place. Because cinema in Uganda wasn’t as advanced as is probably now, DD made sure we went to Nairobi to experience an established studio.

To Dr Dipio, teaching has always been a commitment. I have learned from close sources that even after refusal to renew her contract in 2023, this woman of God has continued to teach and supervise her students – not to all of the sudden disappear from them.

Sadly, there’s absolutely no sound academic or professional reason for denying her contract renewal.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.