On 6 November 2024, at 3 pm, a man of slight build stepped out of the lower auditorium at the School of Law, Makerere University.
He had just taught his last constitutional law class, forty-one years after he joined the staff at the School (then called the Faculty of Law) as a Teaching Assistant in October 1983. It seemed to be a rather understated closure of the Makerere chapter of what has been a stellar career of scholarship and praxis.
In some ways, this modest signing out is appropriate, being quite typical of the man – Professor Joe Oloka- Onyango. Indeed, he has spent much of the past few weeks and months fending off the most earnest efforts by colleagues at the School of Law to hold some kind of commemoration of his legacy, consistent with the impact he has had in the university and beyond.
At the same time, there are some instances in which even the most strongly held wishes of the individual must give way to a larger public interest. The story of Oloka-Onyango must be told, because Oloka-Onyango, whether he likes it or not, no longer belongs to himself.
Having dedicated such a significant component of his life and work in the service of the public, it is critical that that body of work – and the quality of that service – be given due attention, not least of all as a reminder that it is possible to be Ugandan or African, and exhibit the highest degrees of excellence and integrity.
In this regard, I am under no illusion that today’s column can even begin to do justice to this critical task, but I suppose this effort must start somewhere. Everyone at the School of Law – and in the legal and activist community in Uganda and beyond – has their ‘Oloka story’. For many, it starts with the very first time he entered the classroom or other setting and insisted: ‘call me Joe’. I have always wondered where those who accepted this invitation derived the courage to do so.
I have myself not been able to muster it, even after having had the privilege of co-teaching the courses ‘Constitutional History’ and ‘Constitutional Law’ with him since 2009 I suspect that if one quite realized the gravitas of the individual, they would find significant difficulty in accepting that otherwise kind invitation.
I think, for instance, of the work he has authored: over 37 books and book chapters; 67 journal articles, book reviews, papers and briefs; 20 working papers, monographs and reports; and 100 conference and seminar papers, studies and newspaper articles and Op-Eds.
I also think of the several Master of Laws (LLM) and Doctor of Laws (LLD) theses he supervised and examined (from Makerere University and other institutions) over the years. Even by the sheer volume and quality of this work, it should be clear that the man who stepped out of the lower auditorium last week was not an ordinary academic.
However, if any other proof in this regard were required, it might be found in the range of leading Universities and institutions across the world which have sought out, and leaned on, his expertise over the years, as evidenced by Visiting Professorships at George Washington University (on the Fulbright programme, from August – November, 2014); the University of Oxford (Summers of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2011); the United Nations University (June of 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010); the American University in Cairo (Spring 2007); Keio University (June, 2006); University of Puerto Rico (Summer, 2004); New York University (Fall, 2002); University of Cape Town (September, 2001); State University of New York (October, 2000); University of Wisconsin (Fall, 2000); University of Pretoria (2000-2022); Harvard Law School (Winter, 1997); School of Law and Institute of International Studies, University of Minnesota (September, 1994 to September, 1995); College of Law and African Studies Centre, University of Gainesville (Spring, 1993); and a Fellowship at the prestigious Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Studies (April to May 2015).
One could also point to his commissioned work for such organizations as the Council for the Development of Research in Africa (CODESRIA); the Department for International Development—United Kingdom (DFID-UK); the Ford Foundation; UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR; the African Union; the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First); the World Bank; and the World Health Organization (WHO); as well as his service as Special Rapporteur on Globalization and Human Rights of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
Clearly, he could have taken his pick of any one of these institutions – whether in academia or policy. That he chose to stay at Makerere is testament to his devotion and sacrifice to our university and our country, among others. And serve Makerere he did – as Teaching Assistant (from October, 1983 to July 1985); Lecturer (October, 1989 to October, 1992); Coordinator, HURIPEC (October, 1993 to September, 1994); Senior Lecturer (October, 1992 to March, 1997); Acting Director, HURIPEC (July, 1996 to March 1998); Associate Professor (March, 1997 to April 01, 2005); Dean of the Faculty of Law (April, 1998 to August, 2002); Director, HURIPEC (October, 2004 to February, 2013) and Professor of Law (April 01, 2005 to September 16, 2024).
Of Professor Oloka-Onyango’s work and service at Makerere, there can perhaps no more authoritative testament than some reflections by Professor John Ssebuwufu (who served as Vice Chancellor of Makerere from 1993 to 2004) in his 2017 book entitled Managing and Transforming an African University.
Professor Ssebuwufu writes of Oloka-Onyango: ‘The Harvard- trained SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) lawyer was one of most industrious and illustrious members of staff at Makerere that I had ever met. As Director [of HURIPEC], he moved the Centre to a higher level. Like the Faculty of Arts, a computer laboratory in the Law School was a novelty in the University at the time.
The ICT revolution had caught up with the learned profession, this time not in court of law, but where the learned friends- to-be were being taught the tricks of the trade before they went out to exercise their practice in the real world’ (at pages 505-506). He further notes, with regard to Oloka-Onyango: ‘As I approached my last years as Vice Chancellor, the faculty elected Joe Oloka Onyango as Dean.
When the news of his election reached me, I could not help thinking that in so doing, members of staff had paid a fitting tribute to one of the longest serving members of staff in the faculty and a loyal colleague. After his SJD from Harvard, Oloka Onyango could have stayed and worked in the USA or gone somewhere else where the pastures were greener than the Uganda of the 1980s.
Instead, he chose to come back home, in the midst of Uganda’s political and economic chaos, to build for the future of Uganda, East Africa, Africa and the world. I was almost certain that if Bernard Onyango had not retired from Makerere a few years earlier, the election of his son as Dean would have been a crowning moment for him too.
Through his hard work, at the time he became Dean, Oloka Onyango had risen to the rank of Associate Professor … Although a very much low-key person, under Onyango’s leadership, the faculty moved on …’ (at pages 508-509). Outside the classroom, and beyond the university, Professor Oloka-Onyango’s work also extended to public interest litigation and advocacy – including involvement in such cases as Uganda Association of Women Lawyers, Dora Byamukama, Jacqueline Asiimwe, Peter Matovu, Joe Oloka Onyango and Philip Karugaba v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition No.2 of 2003, which found various provisions of the Divorce Act to violate the rights of women to equality and non- discrimination); Oloka-Onyango and 9 Others v Attorney General (Constitutional Petition No.8 of 2014, which nullified the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act on grounds of absence of quorum); and In the Matter of Prof J Oloka-Onyango and 8 others (Civil Application No 2 of 2016, which is now the defining authority on amicus curiae interventions in Uganda).
In these and other instances, he deliberately lent his considerable gravitas to not only to the service of weighty public questions but also to affirm the humanity of persons at the margins of the State and society – refugees and displaced persons, sex workers, persons with disabilities, sexual and gender minorities and others.
In this regard, aside from doing a lot of the work that established the School of Law’s Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Refugee Law Project (RLP) and Public Interest Law Clinic (PILAC), he has guided and informed the work of several other human rights and civil society organizations in Uganda, including the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), Kituo Cha Katiba (KCK); the International Governance Alliance and others.
I noted earlier that most people in the legal community have their ‘Oloka story’. I have quite a number, some of which I will tell much later – for indeed, the Oloka- Onyango story cannot be reduced into a single column (many of mine involve high crimes and misdemeanours on my part, and limitless reservoirs of forgiveness and grace on his!).
For now, I will recount not quite an Oloka story, but an Oloka-related one. Last year the School of Law hosted a couple of students from the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Human Rights, as we have done for over two decades now. At a dinner hosted to bid them farewell, the three visiting students were asked why they chose to come to Makerere.
One said they had wanted to work with Prof Oloka Onyango, another with Prof Sylvia Tamale (who happens to be Prof Oloka Onyango’s life partner, and in respect of whom an entirely separate account can and should be written) and the other with Prof Mahmood Mamdani. It struck me then, as it still does now, that none of them had particularly come to Makerere to work with any one of us at that table. It is also telling that all three world-class academics are now away from Makerere.
Evidently, the departure of giants of this nature cannot leave our university the same. And, as a university community, we might need to deeply reflect on two issues: i) how certain distinct and exceptional talent can be retained, even if under innovative arrangements (and I do not speak here of random, across the board ‘age-limit’ amendments!); and ii) how the example of such scholars can be followed to ensure that their standard of top-notch scholarship and global and local (‘glocal’) impact does not end with their era.
In any case, any such reflections must begin from being intentional about acknowledging greatness even where it takes the form of a man of slight build, dressed in jeans and a cap, walking leisurely around the Makerere University campus with a friendly if rather inscrutable smile.
The man who stepped out of the lower auditorium on Wednesday last week might be one who sincerely requests that he simply be called ‘Joe’. Nonetheless, his modesty should not mislead any of us – that man was not, is not, and will never be – an ordinary Joe.
The writer is Senior Lecturer and Acting Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) at the School of Law, Makerere University, where he teaches Constitutional Law and Legal Philosophy.
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