Mahmood Mamdani, the executive director of Makerere Institute of Social Research, is not an angel. And certainly the programme is not his fiefdom. MISR’s current mission  takes seriously Frantz Fanon’s resolute plea to the African revolutionary intellectual to not simply revert to our world of yore - the pre-colonial, pre-modern, primordial, etc. - but to rethink it anew.

Prof. Mahmood Mamdani imperils the survival of the programme he heads at Makerere University by his capriciousness and reliance on political connections. This raises serious questions about his integrity as a person, scholar and administrator. Mamdani has for a long time abused the goodwill of many well-meaning but unsuspecting people who looked up to him.

The ruckus kicked up by Dr. Stella Nyanzi’s nude protest against Prof Mahmood Mamdani, director of Makerere Institute of Social Research, refuses to die down. Responding to an article by three fellow graduate students in support of Dr. Nyanzi published in last week’s issue of Pambazuka News, another student now offers a different take on the controversial academic and the situation at the institute.