Stella Nyanzi biography, career, profile and what you never knew about her

Born June 16, 1974, Stella Nyanzi is an academia who has been working with Makerere University Institute of Social Research till she was suspended from the University.

Nyanzi has managed to develop from a minor celebrity she enjoyed as a Don at Makerere to a National Celebrity within a span of one year. Through her controversial literature and Facebook posts, the academic research fellow has got herself a name.

However, though she is popular, a few people know little about her life outside Facebook which has given her haters a chance to brand her all sorts of names, characters and tie a falsehood background on her. Not forgetting her fans who are exaggerating her already enormous success in her academic and social life.

Born in Masaka District, Stella Nyanzi managed to see her parents pass away in a short period. He father passed away in 2014 while her mother Harriet Nyanzi passed away the following year in 2015.

Education Background of Stella Nyanzi

Stella Nyanzi studied at Makerere University from 1993 to 1996 where she graduated in Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Literature. While at Makerere University, Stella Nyanzi studied with the renowned Journalist Andrew Mwenda and the two have time and again claimed to have been better than the other in class.

From 1999-2000, Stella Nyanzi attended University College London a constituent college of the Federal University of London where she got her Masters in Science, Medical Anthropology.

2003 – 2008, The Academic Don studied PhD in Social anthropologist, Sexualities, Youth and Health Policy from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She went in 2005 to Gambia where she carried out her academic research about sexualities of youths.

Work and Career

Stella Nyanzi has worked in various offices of various organizations and so many countries with most of them being related to Social Research.

Shortly after her graduation, in 1997, she got a job of a Social Science Research Associate at the Medical Research Council (UK) Programme in Uganda where she worked from February 1997 to September 2002.

She later landed on a job of being Local Anthropologist at the Medical Research Council Laboratories, The Gambia where she worked from 2002 to 2003 and left after 1 year and one month.

Upon getting her PHD in London, in 2009, Stella Nyanzi managed to secure a job at the Makerere University as a Researcher at the Law, Gender & Sexuality Research Project, Faculty of Law, Makerere University where she worked until December 2013.

While at Makerere University, she was able to attain a job at the Makerere Institute of Social Research as a Research Fellow.

In 2016, while working at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Stella Nyanzi was requested to lecture in the newly Introduced PhD programme dubbed the Mamdani PHD Project and Stella Nyanzi declined the request.

This however brought fragile feelings towards her and the head of department Professor Mamdani which resulted into locking of her office at the Research Institute. Stella Nyanzi on finding her office locked, she protested by undressing, recording herself on a video clip as she shouted “F#ck You Mamdani”.

She got her office opened later though she was soon suspended by the Makerere University Displinary Committee as they started investigating her case. While on Suspension, her salary was cut into half.

Suspension from work gave her enough time to involve in social and political activism and she was part of the 2016 FDC Tuesday Prayers and a participant in the FDC May 5 Procession where she was arrested upon landing on the FDC Compound.

In 2016 she managed to get a job at Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Studies (STIAS) University in South Africa where she scooped around UGX 200 Million in a short span.

Stella Nyanzi managed to win the case against Professor Mamdani and she was called back to work in 2017 at Makerere University though she found her office changed.

On March 31, Stella Nyanzi was suspended again by the appointment committee from Makerere University after she abused the First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni who is also the Minister of Education and Sports.

Personal Life, Marriage and Husband

Stella Nyanzi is a cousin to a popular Ugandan Musician Moses Ssali popularly known as Bebe Cool. Her mother Harriet Nyanzi and Bebe Cool’s mother Suzan Ssali are sisters.

Nyanzi married a Gambia Man who she met with in London, United Kingdom. She later went with him in Gambia where she worked as a Local Anthropologist in 2002-2003. While a scholar at PhD course, she did her research in Gambia where she was alongside her husband. She managed to give birth to her first daughter Baraka in late 2004 and months later in 2005, she managed to relocate to London again with her Husband.

While in London with her husband, she discovered that she was to be the mother of twins. She was pregnant again. While she was pregnant, Stella Nyanzi was advised by her husband Ousman to return home to Uganda as he was to join those weeks later. She boarded the plane and landed in Uganda but the husband took forever to come. Stella Nyanzi kept calling him inquiring why he is not coming and finally the man managed to open up to her and tell her the truth.

The husband told her that he was not going to come back to Africa since his country Gambia, by then led by Yahya Jammeh had passed a law to kill all gays in Gambia. Him being a gay, a fact that Stella Nyanzi never knew, he was not to return to Africa but rather seek asylum in United Kingdom. That was the last of her with her husband. She finally gave birth to healthy boys who are currently 11 years and have never seen their Dad.

“After twelve years of marriage to an absent husband, I lost my faith in weddings.” Stella Nyanzi quoted one day taking about her lost husband.

Stella Nyanzi since then has had no publicly known relationship, except the policeman whom she was dating in 2014 as she quoted her daughter asking her why she is dating a Policeman yet policemen are the ones refusing Lukwago [Erias] a chance to go to his Office. 

Stella Nyanzi is a proud owner of a beautiful Bungalow which she completed in 2017 in her home Masaka. She has land in Masaka of which some of it she inherited it from her parents. She is a mother of three and is currently having no permanent relationship as she was quoted on her birthday “At 42, I have No job, no political party, and no lover! And yet I am fulfilled….” 

Social and Political Activism

Stella has been a supportive member of the LGBT (Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community in Uganda. She was among the Makerere academia who protested the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2013. She was invited as a guest speaker on the LGBT Vigil as they were condoling with the Gays who were killed in the Orlando Shooting in the United States of America in June 2016. 

Stella Nyanzi on April 1, 2017 came up and said that she is not a Lesbian and she has never even wished to be one but she believes in freedom for everyone and believes that gays and lesbians should be given rights and she denied any contacts with the gays who some were alleging that they were the ones sponsoring her activities to promote homosexuality in Ugandan schools.

Stella Nyanzi on March 6th Launched the Pads4girsUg Project where she managed to collect thousands of re-usable pads and distributed them to school girls and also offered lectures to school children about menstrual health.

Stella Nyanzi played a big role towards the opposition in 2016 Uganda General Elections where she launched her vulgar campaign against the incumbent government. She was part of the FDC Tuesday Prayers, was part of the May 5 FDC Procession where she was arrested but later released. She part of the Free Besigye campaign where she was seen holding posters alongside Makerere University Students who were protesting Besigye’s arrest. 

She however refused to join the FDC Boycott campaign saying it was ill-planned and that she cannot stop contacts with her friends and relatives who support NRM and also getting services and buying goods from firms owned by NRM leaning businessmen.

Stella Nyanzi was also popular with her literature saying thousands of words against President Museveni and other people in the hierarchy most notably Kale Kayihura, Badru Kiggundu and of recent, the First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni. Her various quotes have not only been admired by her 150,000+ followers on Facebook but also rated some of the best writings in Ugandan Literature. Some of the lines include:

When she promised to roast her clitoris if Museveni wins elections, when she promised to give Kale Kayihura her Vagina if he ensures peace and security during elections. When she called President Museveni a pair of Buttocks after his speech in Masindi on Liberation day Celebrations, January 26, 2017.

She went ahead to abuse the First Lady Janet Museveni after she appeared before the parliament and told the legislative house how the government had no money to procure pads for school girls. She (Nyanzi) was later summoned to the police on allegations of Cyber Crimes – Miss Use of a computer after which she was put on the travel black list and she cannot leave the country.

The First Lay Janet Museveni while appearing on a local TV said that she doesn’t know what she did to Dr. Stella Nyanzi to deserve such kind of abuse but went ahead to say that she has forgiven her “I have received reports about Dr Stella Nyanzi insulting me. I don’t know what wrong I committed to deserve that kind of language and abuse. However, I want to tell Ugandans that I forgive her”