University of Dar es Salaam names Museveni best alumnus

President Yoweri Museveni has been described as a practicing politico-economist and an intellectual naming him an alumnus of the month by the University of Dar Salaam in Tanzania.

Museveni enrolled at the University of East Africa at Dar es Salaam in 1967, graduating in 1970 with a BA (honours) in Political science and economics.

His early base of character formation and resilience built a strong foundation for the intellectual and ‘scouting' feats of his later part of life.

According to the university website: "Whenever on university vacations he would partake in combat and striker camps inside Mozambique territory but also play part in what were known as ideological classes that would be held often on Sundays to replace the religious liturgies."

He later adapted his own intellectual posture in nation-building efforts to a balance of these two seemingly parallel lines, moderated, as came to be, by a pragmatic crisscrossing blend of ground-tested pragmatic experiences," the university adds.

The University in June 2019, through its Directorate of Internationalization, Convocation, and Advancement (DICA), initiated a programme of the "Alumni of the Month" in an attempt to feature the university's alumni (degree and occasional-programme graduates) who are identified to have made a contribution by way of their participation in its academic programmes and their professional service in diverse ways to the public.

The university hailed Museveni's dedication and singular mindedness to the economic progress of Uganda and the well-being of her citizens which has remained steadfast.

It was while at Dar es Salaam that he forged alliances with other politically active ‘revolutionaries' from around the region.

While he was truly a good student there - in political science and economics, it might well be said that a greater share of his learning was perhaps not directly as much from his college lecturers as it was from the ‘great revolutionaries' outside of the classroom, of the stature of Marx, Lenin, Fanon, Mao, and Castro.

While over the years he has found some time to visit his Alma Mater notwithstanding his busy schedules Museveni has also found time to jot down his reflections for wider dissemination on the experiences Africa has had at various times in her history and to offer ideas on how our region can make headway.

Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda, published and reprinted since 1997 and What is Africa's Problem? are not only an interesting read but also a stimulus to even wider questions in need of answers.

Yet at the cultural-linguistic level of national development, President Museveni has authored a book, Katondoozi: A Thesaurus of Runyankore-Rukiga (2019), written in an indigenous African language and making what Makerere's Prof. Elly Sabiiti, in a Citation for the Outstanding Scholarly Authorship Award, recognized as a ‘complete granary for the Runyankore-Rukiga' displaying the ‘rich and unique vocabulary, of an African language.

In 2011, in an interview with BBC, the university quotes Museveni to having said he said that he wanted to leave two things as his legacy: A clearly evident socio-economic transformation of Uganda that headed towards turning the country into a first-world state; and an East African Federation.

Other alumni to have got the same recognition by the university include Tanzanian president John Pombe Magufuli and his predecessor Jakaya Kikwete among others.