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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: Thursday, August 24, 2023
The Muni University in Arua, host of the inaugural Idi Amin memorial lecture to be held on September 1, 2023, has unveiled a sh114.256 billion (USD30.88 million) memorial project plan that is expected to enhance the furtherance of the university’s mission to provide quality education, generate knowledge, promote innovation and community empowerment for transformation.
The projects include USD12.22 million multi-purpose center that will include a 1,126-seat capacity conference hall, a 150-seat capacity cafeteria, 31 offices, a general store, a pharmacy, bookshop, a banking hall, an indoor sports facility and 22 lecture halls with capacity for 2,200 students.
Also earmarked are USD9.24 million female and USD9.42 million male halls of residence with holding capacity for 1,000 students each.
The establishment of these facilities would provide fair accommodation for both national and international students while offering conducive learning and research environment, according to a write-up by the vice chancellor in-charge of finance and administration, Prof Epiphany Odupuker Picho.
Kaps Hassan Fungaroo, a former Member of Parliament and spokesman for the central organizing committee for the memorial lecture, disclosed that they are aiming to link the Muni University with Middle Eastern Institutions and Islamic organisations to help bankroll the projects.
Recently, the government complete construction of the Idi Amin Road together with Enyau Road in Arua City at a combined cost of sh6 billion under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development with funding support from the World Bank.
Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the minister for National Guidance and Information, Communication Technology, will be the Chief Guest at the memorial lecture at which South Africa’s opposition President of the Economic Freedom Fighters Party, Julius Malema is expected to deliver the key-note address.
The Uganda government Spokesman, Ofwono Opondo, Idi Amin’s apologetic son Jaffer Remo Amin and the ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Uganda, Jamal Mohammad Hassan Al-Madani are some of the notable invitees to speak at the occasion.
The memorial event is being organized under the theme: “re-examining the life and work of late former president Idi Amin and his contribution to the development of Uganda, patriotism, Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the liberation struggle of Africans in Africa and in the diaspora.”
The organizers belief that the memorial lecture that will become annual, will provide avenue for compiling a balanced account of what Amin did wrong and what he did right.
Fungaroo said while talk of rampant extra-judicial killings dominates the talk about the regime of Amin, some of Amin’s decrees such as reducing the period for life imprisonment from 60 to 20 years are still the best laws governing the legal practice in Uganda, yet no one remembers him for that.
