Western bodies have long reduced African academics to native informants whose job is simply to collect data for those in New York or London who have the conceptual competence to study it. It is this native informant mentality that Prof. Mamdani is uprooting in his effort to transform Makerere Institute of Social Research from a consultancy unit into a full-fledged research institute. Such a person needs support, not slander.

The university as exported by Europe to the rest of the world is structured in such a way that the student has least say in its affairs. One cannot seek to democratize the university by focusing on an individual or group of individuals. It becomes even more self-defeating if that focus takes the form of malice, blackmail and outright personal insults that constitute much of Dr. Ocita’s dossiers against Prof Mamdani.