Six members, out of the total nine that make up the council of the Makerere Debating Union (MDU) are all female for the first time in the history of the Union. As if that is not enough history, the top position of Council Director and Vice are all occupied by girls.
Daniella Kagina, who has until recently been the Vice Council Director to Patrick Murungi Ngasirwa, is the leader of the new pack.
Makerere Debating Union is a prestigious association of speech and expression loving students at the institution that has represented Uganda’s oldest university in competitions nationally and internationally.
Needless to say, two of their team for example, were first and second runners-up at the East African Universities’ Debate Championship (EAUDC) 2017 in Kigali, Rwanda.
The new executive has Daniella Kagina as the Council Director, Precious Khakasa Mercy as her vice, and Mercy Awino as Speaker.
Also Howard Mwesigwa, Barry Ainomugisha, Tayebwa Atwine and Charlotte Kwitonda as Directors for Debate, Speech, Finance and Council Secretary respectively.
Janice Ayebale and Charity Amoit complete the list as Directors of Mobilisation and Publicity.
Emmanuel Luwagga, the Electoral Commission Chairman who oversaw the election described it as transparent, free and fair.
“As a union, we stand for the ideas of justice and democracy, and these elections are a representation of such virtues and values. The will of the people was respected”, Luwagga told our reporter.
The MDU meets every Thursday evening (between 5pm and 7pm) for Forum in Mary Stuart Hall TV Room.
Forum is their traditional internal Debate meeting where usually, a topic is chosen from what has dominated news in the previous week and debates and contributions ensue on it.
Quoting the outing Council Director’s handover report verbatim,
“During our term of office I am humbled to report that the numbers were flattering, we saw a surge in the attendance and for this we are extremely proud.”
