The room in Complex Hall used by the late Tanzanian founding president, Julius Nyerere is to be preserved by Makerere University.
According to the Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, that the room will be renovated and set apart with some collections of materials used by Nyerere
“This room should be worked on and preserved as a historical site for our alumnus. We shall look for some of his collections and set up the room,” he said.
Bearing Nyerere on its door in his honor, the room is currently used as an office at the Institute of Open Distance and Electronic Learning. Professor Nawangwe revealed this during celebrations marking the would-be 100th Birthday for Nyerere held by the Julius Nyerere Leadership Center-JNLC.
Nyerere was born on April 13, 1922, and died on October 14, 1999, leaving a strong legacy behind him. Prof. Nawangwe noted that the celebrations were important because of the legacy that Nyerere left as a liberator for Africa.
He described Nyerere as an outlier among the greatest alumni of Makerere, adding that he is the first for whom a monument was made at the university, showing how significant his legacy was.
The university also established the Julius Nyerere Leadership Center at the former university bookshop near the senate, which is co-managed by Uganda Management Institute and trains young leaders in universities on Nyerere’s ideologies.
Some of these include unity in leadership, peace and democracy in addition to education values and research.
The celebrations were attended by other dignitaries such as the Tanzanian High Commissioner in Uganda, the Vice-Chancellor for Bugema University and the Executive Director of JLNC among others, and they all made recollections of Nyerere’s legacy.
Dr. Aziz Ponary Mlima, the High Commissioner for Tanzania who referred to Nyerere as a champion of education noted that the ideology of free education by the former president stirred national transformation. Mlima said that based on such a contribution, the establishment of a leadership center at Makerere is significant to hand down similar leadership ideologies to the young in academia.
Bonny Muwanguzi, vice president for the students association of the East African Community noted that the fact that Nyerere was being celebrated in Uganda is a lesson of how far-reaching the impact of leadership should be felt.
The celebrations consisted of several activities such as planting a Muvule tree at the Leadership Center in honor of Nyerere and an exhibition of several kinds of literature about Nyerere.