Acid attack survivor and activist Hanifa Nakiryowa has released a new video in which she says her former husband, Makerere University don Dr Faisal Buyinza, withheld her examination marks while she was his student until she agreed to marry him.
In the roughly 10-minute TikTok video, billed as the first part of a series, Nakiryowa recounts how she met Dr Buyinza as an undergraduate at Makerere in the early 2000s. Dr Buyinza today heads the Department of Economic Theory and Analysis at the College of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS).
“It might seem like this is unreal. It’s like a movie fiction, but it’s real,” Nakiryowa tells viewers at the start of the video.
The allegations in the video have not been tested in any court or disciplinary process, and CampusBee could not independently verify them. Dr Buyinza has previously denied wrongdoing in connection with Nakiryowa.
“You’ll never get your grades”
Nakiryowa says she joined Makerere in 2003 on government sponsorship, pursuing a Bachelor of Science with Education with economics as her major and mathematics as her minor. Dr Buyinza, she says, taught her mathematical economics.
According to her account, she turned down his advances. At the end of the semester, she says, every student in the class received results except her, even though she was the class representative.
When she went to his office to follow up, she says he laughed it off. “You think you’ll ever get your marks? You’ll never get your grades. You keep playing hard to get,” she recalls him saying.
She says the missing marks followed her into her final year. As a government-sponsored student, she explains, finishing on time was not optional because the scholarship would not stretch beyond the normal duration of the course.
Nakiryowa also alleges that over about two and a half years she was cut off from friends and study partners, and that some of her friends’ marks began to go missing too.
A marriage to graduate
Out of desperation, Nakiryowa says, she gave him an ultimatum. Coming from what she describes as a devout and prominent Muslim family, she says she told him she would not sleep with him in exchange for marks, but that he could marry her.
“That’s how I got married to this man, because I wanted to graduate,” she says. “I wanted my marks back and I wanted my friends to have their grades back so we could all graduate on time.”
She says that soon after the marriage, her missing marks and those of her friends appeared, and the class graduated together. “Everyone was happy. But me, I was not, because I knew I had sacrificed myself,” she says.
“I completely forgot who I am”
Nakiryowa says the marriage began in her final year. She says she was told to leave the hostel, stop studying with classmates and instead study in his office before going home with him each evening. By graduation, she says, she was pregnant with her first child.
She describes herself as an outgoing, social student who was gradually cut off from everyone. She alleges he criticised her clothes and hair, told her to give her campus wardrobe away to her sisters, confiscated her phone for up to a week at a time, and did not allow her to open social media accounts.
“This man controlled me to the extent that I completely forgot who I am,” she says, adding that friends would ask what had happened to the “happy, jolly girl” they once knew.
She says her days were confined to the house, the market and the kitchen, cooking for him and the friends who visited. Meanwhile, she alleges, he described her to others as stubborn, high maintenance and unfaithful.
Nakiryowa says she tried to leave just months into the marriage but was not believed. “My family would be like, he’s such a wonderful man. I must be doing something wrong,” she says. “Everybody would believe him. Everybody, until you know him.”
The video closes with a promise of a second part.
The 2011 acid attack
The new video adds to a story that first made headlines almost 15 years ago. On the evening of December 11, 2011, Nakiryowa was splashed with acid outside Dr Buyinza’s residence at Mugenyi Flats, Makerere, where she had gone to see their children after the couple separated. Her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who was with her, was also burned, and both were admitted to Mulago Hospital.
Dr Buyinza was arrested and charged with attempted murder at Buganda Road Court, with prosecutors alleging he masterminded the attack. In court, Nakiryowa testified that he had threatened her before the incident and accused him of hiring the attacker. He denied the charge, telling investigators that although the couple had disagreed, he wanted her back home and knew nothing about the attack.
The case stalled for more than two years as prosecution witnesses repeatedly failed to turn up. In July 2014, the Director of Public Prosecutions discontinued the matter and the court discharged Dr Buyinza without a conviction.
Nakiryowa, who lost her eyes and nose in the attack, has since undergone numerous reconstructive surgeries, including in the UK. In 2012 she founded the Center for Rehabilitation of Survivors of Acid and Burns Violence (CERESAV) and later completed a master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh.
In her recent social media posts, she has also alleged that the witnesses’ absence was the result of intimidation, a claim that has not been independently verified. She has also told her story in a recently released biography titled Hanifah.
Makerere responds
Makerere University issued a statement on Thursday, October 1, acknowledging the concerns raised in the videos about a member of its academic staff. The university did not name Dr Buyinza and did not say whether it had opened an investigation.
Instead, the university restated its zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment, gender-based violence and misconduct, and said formal complaints are handled under its safeguarding and staff disciplinary procedures with due process for everyone involved.
Dr Buyinza has not publicly responded to the latest allegations. CampusBee has reached out to him for comment and will update this story with his response.
Where to report
Makerere students and staff with complaints of sexual harassment or abuse can report through the university’s Gender Mainstreaming Directorate, the Office of the Dean of Students, or MakSafeSpace, the university’s online reporting platform.
