By Kurian Musa
Kenya: The Don with a Pen, Professor William Robert Ochieng’ has passed on.
Ochiengs life will be celebrated in history perhaps as the most enigmatic historian Kenya has produced. The professor is reported to have died due to paralysis.
The Don passed on at around 8pm in the night at the Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu.
Maseno University head of communications department Dr. Charles Nyambuga said that the information was received with great shock.
“I cannot comment so much about the passing on of the professor but I can say it is tragic. Reports are that he was taken to hospital this evening and passed on,”Said Dr. Nyambuga.
Ochieng’s professional life over the years, portrays him not only as a hard-working scholar but one who is eager to explore sacrosanct subjects such as the lives of gay people as he did during his sabbatical in the US in the 1970s.
Professors William Ochieng’, the late E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, Gideon Mutiso, and Ali Mazrui among others were responsible for the transmission of “foreign imperialist culture” in the country’s universities.
However, the more unsettling criticism of Ochieng’ came in the National Interest. He was accused of partisanship in his journalistic pieces.
