In his condolence message, Nawangwe reminisces Prof. Nsibambi’s eight universal characteristics of integrity delivered at the Bernard Onyango Inaugural Lecture on May 30, 2014, which he proposed should be emulated. The characteristics built around paying attention to detail, include accountability, trust, Honesty, modesty and care for the greater good, among others.
Professor Apollo Nsibambi was the stickler for time, excellence and integrity, Makerere University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe has said in tribute to the fallen ex-premier. Nsibambi breathed his last on Tuesday evening after losing the battle to prostate cancer. He was aged 78.
His body is expected to lay at Makerere University Main Hall this Friday in honour of his service to Makerere in several capacities from the early independence era in the 1960s until 2007. He was the first non-Head-of-State Chancellor of Makerere University, a portfolio he held between 2003 and 2007.
In his condolence message, Nawangwe reminisces Prof. Nsibambi’s eight universal characteristics of integrity delivered at the Bernard Onyango Inaugural Lecture on May 30, 2014, which he proposed should be emulated. The characteristics built around paying attention to detail, include accountability, trust, Honesty, modesty and care for the greater good, among others.
Nawangwe remembers Nsibambi as a disciplinarian who always insisted that hooliganism must be stamped out of Makerere.
Nawangwe says that Nsibambi’s humble character was visible during his time in government, where, even after being appointed minister, he chose to remain in his university residence as Professor in Livingstone Quarters. Nawangwe says this signals his desire to keep a low profile despite privileges at hand.
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Professor Sabiiti Makara, from the Department of Political and Public Administration at Makerere University, says he was mentored by Professor Nsibambi and describes him as a straight forward person who never discriminated in terms of tribe, colour or religion.
“He was my Head of Department and my dean and as a person working under him, he wanted you to work hard, he wanted you to excel, he wanted integrity and excellence,” Professor Makara says.
Makara equally remembers the greatest tribute to Nsibambi; Time management. “If you say you are going to meet at 3:00 o’clock it must be three or earlier. And he was also inspiring so that you do work well. So many of us learnt from him and it has made us what we are.”
Dr Robert Ojambo, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Political Science at Kyambogo University says he met Nsibambi while a student of political science at Makerere University in the 1990s and describes him as a prolific academician whose works remain an authority on Decentralization.
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But according to Ojambo, Prof Nsibambi was hijacked by the government when he criticized it on low wages of staff at Makerere. Ojambo says when he became minister, he backtracked on some of the principles he had so much believed in.
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Prof. Apollo Robin Nsibambi’s body is expected to lay at the Makerere University Main Building this Friday to allow the public and especially Makerere Community to pay their respects to the man held in high regard among academicians, citizens and across the political divide.
Davidson Ndyabahika
Freelancer