Why Lumumba’s tenure at Sonu may haunt him

By Charles Wachira

"Show me a hero and I write you a tragedy," said F Scott Fitzgerald, an American writer. In retrospective, he may have had Kenya in close quarters. For veritably, as recent as the mid 1980s, precocious revolutionaries, intent on cleansing the country’s decayed body politic were incubating at the University of Nairobi.

Then holding forte as Chair of Student Organisation of University of Nairobi (Sonu) was Patrick Lumumba Otieno, aka PLO, an erudite bloke, with street smart credentials and whose oratory cadence, resonates closely to a cloned Martin Luther King. And like the proverbial adamant housefly that follows a corpse to the grave, the past exploits real or imagined, of persons seeking public office normally gets a life.

Lumumba, will be the Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), because President Kibaki refuses to be a slave of the past, even one that smacks of turncoat opportunism. Across the debate divide it’s agreed that Lumumba’s tear jerking eloquence remains a core signature of his brand name, that even the gods would say amen to this son of the soil.

But Dr Kaberere Njenga, Sonu’s Secretary General in 1987 thinks lowly of the man.

"He is simply a job seeker. His oratory skills have unduly inflated his national profile. Lumumba has no personal history of fighting corruption. He is simply a typical opportunist," says this former Libyan trained militant, also a graduate of the notorious Nyayo House dungeons.

Lumumba declined to be interviewed by The Standard On Sunday saying after President Kibaki makes the appointment of the KACC director, he would honour the request.

Prof Yash Pal Ghai, formerly Chair of CKRC, believes Lumumba has what it takes to run KACC. "His background in public law and his administrative experience would be a great asset for the job," Prof Ghai says.

On Sunday, February 5, 1985, university students met at the Great Court, where graduation ceremonies are routinely held, for four reasons: to discuss re-admittance of expelled students; the Nuske conundrum; a return to lecture halls formula; and craftily, for prayers.

Lumumba as Sonu chairman, was expected to provide a roadmap on the way forward, but instead gave the conclave a conspicuous miss.

In the meantime, the Kanu establishment rattled its rabble, and the day crystallised as the proverbial ‘Bloody Sunday’ for the student community. Among the consequences, a student was killed as squadrons of the dreaded GSU personnel descended on the Great Court.