Controversial city lawyer Andrew Karamagi, who rose to fame after accosting Attorney General Peter Nyombi at the beginning of the Annual Law Year in 2014, has turned his barrel to President Yoweri Museveni, shooting from the hip and telling that the President that he has no powers to close a public university.
Appearing on NBS talkshow ‘Morning Breeze’, Karamagi said the President erred when he justified his directive to close the university under the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 2001.
“I Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda has this 1st day of November 2016, pursuant to the powers vested in me by the Constitution and Section 26(2) of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 2001 as amended, decided to close Makerere University with immediate effect,” the President wrote early last week.
But according to Karamagi, Mr Museveni was wrong: the law only gives the President, who is also the Visitor, supervisory powers, he said.
‘President Museveni has no powers to close a public university. That law only gives him supervisory powers’, Mr Karamagi said, adding that the President does not trust anyone in the education chain, in respect to Makerere university.
‘Mr Museveni doesn’t trust the administration at Makerere. He doesn’t trust the education minister who happens to be his wife,’ the vitriolic lawyer said, adding that the closure of Makerere is a ‘national crisis’.
He also said Makerere had been ‘reduced’ to three camps; the protagonists and antagonists of Mr Museveni and the neutral ones.
And, as if in support of student demos, Mr Karamagi said: ‘For Makerere, there’s no solution from those in charge. Those affected by the situation there should take action’.
He also said Uganda is a ‘failed state’. ‘Doctors are complaining, police is asking citizens for fuel… Makerere is one of the symptoms of a failed state; how much more are we waiting to see before concluding we have a failed state?’ the lawyer posed.
In February 2014 Karamagi attracted public attention when he grabbed a speech from the Attorney General Peter Nyombi who, at the time, was at loggerheads with the Uganda Law Society for reportedly misadvising the President Museveni ‘on a number of controversial issues, including the re-appointment of retired Justice Benjamin Odoki as Chief Justice and the appointment of Gen Aronda Nyakairima (RIP), a serving army officer, as Internal Affairs minister, before resigning from the army.
