More than 15 years after Dr Peter Mwesige left teaching at Makerere University, the Department of Journalism and Communication at the university has confirmed his return.
The department said in a statement that Dr Mwesige’s appointment had been approved by the university’s Appointments Board on August 19.
He will rejoin the department, which he previously headed until 2007, when he left to become Nation Media Group Training Editor.
Dr Aisha Nakiwala Ssembatya, the head of the department, said Dr Mwesige’s appointment had been warmly received by staff.
“This is not simply a former colleague coming back, but an experienced professional returning with fresh knowledge and new perspectives to strengthen the department,” she said.
Dr Mwesige, who turns 55 years old in September, is a well-known figure in journalism in Uganda and beyond.
He began as a stringer at The Monitor while still a student at Makerere University in 1993. He rose to senior reporter before leaving with some colleagues to start The Crusader, which collapsed in 1999.
Thereafter, he went to the American University in Cairo, where he earned a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication. He returned to Uganda and worked at The New Vision as Political Editor.
He left to pursue a PhD in mass communications at Indiana University in the United States, and upon his return in 2004, he was appointed the first executive editor of Daily Monitor while teaching at Makerere.
He left Daily Monitor in March 2006 and rejoined Makerere, where he was made the head of the then Department of Mass Communication.
In November 2007, Dr Mwesige left Makerere in 2007 to become Group Training Editor at the Nation Media Group (NMG), overseeing newsroom training across the company’s outlets in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Two years later, he left NMG and, together with Bernard Tabaire, a former managing editor at Daily Monitor, co-founded the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), an organisation that trains journalists and promotes quality journalism across the continent.
He led ACME as executive director for more than a decade before stepping down in June 2022, when Dr George Lugalambi took over.
At a time when print journalism is in decline and fewer students are majoring in writing at the university, according to a senior lecturer there, Dr Mwesige’s return may spark renewed interest in the trade by strengthening how the department teaches both theory and practical skills.
