Pastor and activist Martin Ssempa has sounded the alarm over what he calls a “troubling shift” at Makerere University, accusing the Mastercard Foundation of sidelining Ugandan male students in favor of women and refugees.
In a fiery post on X (formerly Twitter), Ssempa didn’t mince words: “I went through Makerere University the other day. It feels like an Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese refugee center now. Why is @MastercardFdn funding women, refugees to Makerere University and totally discriminating Ugandan young men? I thought gender balance meant 50/50 male and female.”
His comments have since set off a social media storm, with hundreds of Ugandans debating whether the Mastercard Foundation’s scholarship policies have gone too far in their focus on inclusion.
Ssempa says he’s raising the alarm not out of prejudice, but out of concern for the growing exclusion of local young men from academic and scholarship opportunities.
“Everywhere you look — the classrooms, the hostels, the events — you’ll find more women and refugees than local male students,” Ssempa told Campus Bee in a follow-up comment. “We fought for gender balance, not gender replacement. How did Ugandan men become the new minority at Makerere?”
He claims that Ugandan men, especially those from humble backgrounds, are being silently pushed out by programs that prioritize “special categories” — often leaving them without funding or support.
Walking through Makerere’s Freedom Square today, one can’t ignore the shift. The campus — long regarded as the intellectual heart of Uganda — now reflects the diversity of East Africa, with students from South Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia visible in nearly every faculty.
Ssempa’s observation that “the Freedom Square now looks like Kabalagala or Kansanga” was meant to highlight what he sees as the slow fading of Ugandan male presence at the country’s premier university.
To him, this isn’t just about race or nationality — it’s about opportunity. “When donor money starts shaping who gets educated in Uganda, we must ask: what’s the long-term plan for our own sons?” he said.
The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, one of Makerere’s largest scholarship initiatives, was established to support talented but disadvantaged youth — with a special emphasis on women, refugees, and persons with disabilities.
Program coordinators maintain that the goal is equity, not exclusion. They argue that many Ugandan men still benefit, but that special consideration is given to historically underrepresented groups.
However, critics like Ssempa insist that the pendulum has swung too far. “You can’t fix inequality by creating another one,” he argued. “We are breeding resentment among young men who feel abandoned in their own country.”
