VC Nawangwe told to cancel Bobi Wine’s MDD diploma to save Makerere image

Perennial litigant Male Mabirizi has written to Makerere University vice chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, asking him to recall Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine Music, Dance and Drama Diploma.

Last year, Mabirizi sued Bobi Wine in Wakiso and Buganda Road Courts for giving false information after discrepancies in the singer-turned-politician’s age.

But the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) later took over Mabirizi’s case.

On October 16, 2020, High Court Judge Wilson Kwesiga upheld Buganda Road Court’s ruling instructing the DPP to take over the case.

However, a dissatisfied Mabirizi rushed to the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) challenging Justice Kwesiga’s decision.

As he awaited the EACJ’s ruling, Mabirizi continued seeking further evidence against Bobi Wine.

On December 22, 2020, Mabirizi asked Makerere University academic registrar Alfred Namoah Masikye for a copy of policies and rules on mature age entry admission, particularly for 2000, when the institution admitted Bobi Wine (Kyagulanyi).

Indeed, the University Prospectus 1999/2000- 2000/2001 that academic registrar sent alongside his response to Mabirizi on March 12 shows that the mature age entry limit was at least 25 years.

Now, in light of this new evidence, Mabirizi has told VC Prof Nawangwe that Bobi Wine “obtained the said diploma through fraud or dishonorable or scandalous conduct when he sat Mature Age Entry Scheme Examination on 3rd March, 2000, when he was 20 years, contrary to the rule of at least 25 years, and just a year after he had sat his Advanced Level examinations in November/December 1998, against the rule of at least five years without formal education.”

In his March 15 letter, Mabirizi further told Nawangwe that “although I take the then University officers to have either been negligent or compromised in admitting the candidate, the Diploma should be deprived on account of the candidate’s signed undertaking on his Registration form that ‘CASE OF IMPERSONATION OR FALSIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS WHENEVER DISCOVERED… WILL LEAD TO AUTOMATIC CANCELLATION OF ADMISSION.”

“Accordingly, since the admission has automatically been cancelled, your Senate’s role is to follow the due process leading to deprivation of the Diploma to save the University’s image and to send a clear public message that academic fraud cannot go unpunished however long it may take,” concluded Mabirizi in his letter to Nawangwe.