As the grieving country was coming to terms with the passing of a renowned educationist, we were thrown into a fit of rage when news started streaming through that the deceased was an unapologetic philanderer—as the tabloids framed the story for the insatiably gossipy Kampala.  

Picking cue from the all-white fabrics of the mourners—a commendable decolonial stance of the deceased—Kampala’s grapevine (and some mainstream sources such as the Monitor newspaper) carried the claim that the deceased had left behind between 50 and 100 orphans. 

With the children showed at the funeral being mostly between the ages of five and 13, Kampala could not stop turning its head — some in bewilderment and some in salutation — at either  bad manners or the manly prowess of the deceased.  More was to come: the mothers of these children had been Prof Mukiibi’s students!

I know, despite their absolute sweetness and luxuriousness, gossip and rumour are difficult things, and should be despised.  But beyond, over and above that, gossip and rumour occupy a central and important space in our socio-political interaction. Besides their claimed lack of veracity, among other things, rumour and gossip reveal a particular world – a world we inhabit needing to be appreciated and understood. 

So, the Africans would say: “what killed the gossiper was not the absence of facts, but the sweetening of the tale.”

Among other rumours that greeted the passing of Prof Mukiibi was the fact (the fact?) that his success as an educationist (and perhaps also his interrupted success with the female students), was partly because, he worked for government—powerful people in government. The claim went that the private educational establishments he appeared to own were not really his, but belonged to a powerful minister in Museveni’s government.

(Although a Daily Monitor investigation into this rumour noted that he had owned 60 per cent and the rest by his children, I will stick to the rumour for its discursive power).

While we should and must allow Prof Mukiibi to rest in peace, it is undeniable that his story — and the rumours that surrounded it — are instructive for our present condition. [Not his horniness, but his career as an educationist]. As the parents grapple with increasing tuition fees, and an irredeemably declining public education sector under Museveni, Prof Mukiibi, whose success in private education business remains to this day, should return to instruct us.

PRIVATE VS PUBLIC

I will start this story from the beginning: The lie of the late 1980s was that public institutions were unable to perform to their full potential because public servants approached them with a wrong amoral and disrespectful attitude (as Nigerian political theorist Peter Ekeh put it in his seminal 1975 essay, “Colonialism and Africa’s two publics”). 

This amoral attitude of Africans in the post-colony was that public servants did not see public institutions as their own, and thus they did not care much—as they did with the private realm of clan and family—which in turn made them unsustainable and unprofitable. Worse, it made African public servants corrupt in this public realm as they saw this as an opportunity to steal and benefit their clan and kindred.

While Peter Ekeh was accurate about Museveni and his clannist-hunter-gatherer politics, he was generally wrong about larger African publics. While his argument would be lurched onto by the Chicago school, and the gangs of fraudsters behind the Structural Adjustment Programmes, arguing that African institutions should be privatized so that Africans run them as their own, they had to cook documents to buttress their claims that public institutions had been unsustainable. [Prof Ezra Suruma has demonstrated otherwise in the case of UCB, as did political economist Jörg Wiegratz, among others, in his 2015 book].

As we know now, privatization simply ruined African economies, and only advantaged Mzungu colonial institutions. There were no rich enough Africans to buy and run these multi-million projects.

Thus, while others were simply collapsed, the majority returned to Mzungu colonisers who had dropped their short khakis for suits, and colonial posts for missions and agencies. It is no coincidence that our banking sector, electricity, mining, telecommunication, coffee farming, industry, are all in the hands of our so-called “former” colonisers.

Killing the public

While it would be dangerous to privatise all institutions that provided public goods and services (especially schools and hospitals) governments in Africa decided to keep some of these public institutions — where cost-sharing would be permitted —but also invited individual persons to set up businesses to compete with those providing the same public goods and services. It only compounded our troubles.

The problem with ‘inviting private persons to set up competing businesses’ was that the private investors also often doubled as the minister, permanent secretary, member of parliament, a board member or a rich businessperson connected to those in big offices taking the major decisions that affect the public institutions they are supposed to protect. It is only natural that in competition for customers — learners in this case — these people in government have decided to slowly but steadily kill the public institution to make their private businesses irresistible.

We now return to the story of the deceased educationist Prof Mukiibi and the rumours of his connectedness to power. Yes, with major exceptions, most private schools in the country are owned either by people in government, or close friends of people in government.

How should we understand the headline in the government newspaper, The New Vision of September 5, 2022, that “Government Slashes Grants to UPE, USE Schools”!  What are they slashing of these peanuts that they were already going to these wretched public schools? 

From Shs 20,000 per child per year, to a paltry Shs 10,000! Whose children are they teaching?  Besides not having any children in these wretched UPE, USE schools— thus their indifference —these honchos are simply doing business for their private schools.

There is a real conflict of interest here: If the state minister of Education, John Chrysestom Muyingo is an investor in the sector (as are claims about his boss, the real minister of Education, Janet Kataaha Museveni), and their friends Dr Lawrence Mulindwa, Sudhir Ruparelia, businessman Godfrey Kirumira, Sarah Nkonge Muwonge and the majority of the entire Parliamentary Education Commission, and several MPs, it is only natural to advantage their businesses. 

Thus, while they slash the peanuts going to these wretched schools, they are content to increase tuition fees in their businesses, fully convinced the public option is no option.

yusufkajura@gmail.com
 
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.

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