Nullified Makerere University guild presidential aspirant drags university to court

Bwiruka Bala has dragged Makerere university and the guild electoral commission to court. A third year Bachelors of Law student is one of the Makerere university Guild presidential aspirants whose candidature was nullified on grounds of having a retake.

Bala has also sued candidates who were nominated for the top guild job. Some of the candidate in the race for the post of Makerere university guild president include; George Williams Mukula, Stella Namulidwa, Mwine Musa, Ivan Sentongo, and Michael Opoya among others.

Bwiruka Bala is going to be represented by the Centre for Legal Aid lawyer, Isaac Kimaze Ssemakadde. The case is set for hearing on 10th March 2015.

Bala says that the university Academic Registrar together with the Deputy Registrar of Information and Computer Technology surpassed the powers best owed upon the University’s Senate through making a decision not in line with the senate rules and regulations.

The regulation states that no student who has not been on normal progress with retakes for two consecutive semesters is ineligible to contest for guild presidency. But the electoral   commission rendered him not eligible to contest for guild presidency, says Bala.

To Bala, such decisions are only passed by the senate because he has been on normal progress and has no retakes explaining why he is going on with his petition to court.

Bala further explains that he does not have any retakes as the electoral commission and the academic registrar say but rather he has a missing paper which he did not do because court had not yet fully ordered for his expulsion from the institution.

He adds on that the expulsion was due to having led a student’s demonstration against the 60% tuition policy in 2014 along side the outgoing Makerere university Guild president, Ivan Bwowe.