BY KENNEDY BUHERE

The name of the Prof. William Ochieng is inseparably linked in my mind with a textbook on literature entitled Varieties of English: practice in advanced uses of English by H. L. B. Moody.

I came across the book in 1983 in Form Five during my study of Literature in Kakamega High School.

We used the book in our study of Literary and Critical Appreciation, being Paper one of three intellectually demanding paper of Literature.

The book had passages from great prose works of literature that ranged from speeches, parts of great historical and fictional works which grappled with social, economic, cultural issues in ways that I had never come across in my schooling.

The instructional materials in that textbook were written in unusually excellent English and with a conciseness, coherence and perspicuity that I found extremely exciting.

I had not come across anybody who spoke and wrote with such perspicuity, conciseness and coherence save for my Literature Teacher, the late James Khabongo.

Then I happened upon Ochieng in what I came to discover was a weekly column he wrote for one of the dailies. I automatically discerned some conciseness, some coherence, and perspicuity in Ochieng’s writing similar to the readings in the Varieties of English we used as a text in Literature.

I instantly admired his writing style especially given that he was writing about issues that I was living.

I have since followed Ochieng’s newspaper writing ever since I discovered him. I have followed his reflections on the socio-economic issues Kenya has grappled with since the 1980s. I have keenly followed his debates with Prof. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. I have followed his showdowns with Prof. Ali Mazrui. I have read and regaled his exchanges with Prof. Wole Soyinka. I have not failed to read his unconventional views to the effect that Mau Mau uprisings was not the nationalist movement that historians and popular acclaim make it out to be.

And I have learned a lot from these discourses.

I have learned the principles of argumentation or rhetoric from the great Scholar. I have learned how to write in a language many people—modestly and highly educated alike—can understand.

I have learned much more from Prof. Ochieng the craft of writing more than I have probably learned from any professor of journalism and Communication in Kenya.

Someone should collect and collate all the writings he has written for ease access by Kenyans who would like to know the pressures Kenya has had, and how we have dealt with those pressures. Prof. Ochieng has been in many ways, a chronicler of modern History of Kenya through his work in the Kenyan media.

That said, however, I have a problem with Prof. Ochieng the eminent Historians which he indisputably is and which all scholars acknowledge.

He never wrote any textbook on History I know of for use by Secondary School students. This is very unfortunate.

This is unlike the late Professors Gideon Were and Prof. Atieno Adhiambo. Prof. Were wrote East Africa Through a Thousand Years: A History of the Years A.D. 1000 to the Present Day and A History of South Africa.

The books had more than what the syllabus required implying that the authors wrote them without an eye to the History Curriculum as then offered by the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE).

The books covered the almost the entire corpus of East African History—right from the expeditions of Arabs along the Coast of East Africa, through migrations and eventual settlement of the various ethnic communities in the country—broadly called the Bantus, the Plain and Highland Nilots and the Cushitic communities in Northern Kenya.

The books further captured the period immediately after the post independent period—dwelling mostly on the fortunes of the East African Community.

The books on the East African History were almost sufficient for the period they covered; the teachers were apparently at sea as far as the period the books they didn’t cover was concerned, hence most did not teach the late History 1960s and early 1970s.

Our students are not as privileged as we were in their study of East Africa’s or Kenya’s History. Most of the writers of history texts on the current syllabus are names that are not known beyond the confines of the students’ classrooms.

For the most part, they are secondary school teachers coupled together by local publishers and have written the history texts without the refinement and energetic thinking and perspective Professors Were and Odhiambo brought to the writing of their texts.

Great American Historian Charles Austin Beard Carl Becker's stepped down their lofty academic ladder to and wrote a highly simplified history of USA for the sake of high school students in America.

In collaboration with his wife Mary Ritter Beard, Charles Beard wrote A Basic History of the United States, which was for many years a basic text book for the study of American History in High Schools there. Carl Becker’s Modern History: New Roads Barely Trodden was written to target high school students.

We have had countless other American historians who have encapsulated the History of the USA in one or two slender volumes for the sake of American youth. And the books have been written with a vision, a clear vision and in a captivating style well suited to the age, ability and interests of the students for whom they were written.

Evidently, Prof. Ochieng should have spent some time to write a History of Kenya for use by our students. I can’t imagine how concise, how coherent and how fluent it would have been, given his command of the English Language, which is our language of instruction.

Secondly he would have approached the writing of the text(s) with a clear vision about where Kenya is going and should be going. He would have helped build the cohesive, and an integrated nation which all of us are aspiring for given his knowledge of the workings of history.

That the god summoned him before discharging this humble but very important duty is regretted.

I don’t know whether Kenyan historians have ever written any sweeping History of Kenya as the two did. Writing books on specialized areas of history is not helpful to the high school student and the general reader.

We need many other young historians to take up the mantle and further the cause of understanding History, and Kenya’s place in that History, like Prof. Were and Prof. Adhiambo did and which for some inexplicable reason, Prof. Ochieng failed to do.

All in all, I salute him for having been model of excellent writing.

The writer is the Communications Officer, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology