Oh yes Mr Matinagi, Universities will be ethnic enclaves. Not just the councils, but the student populace, the cleaning, security and teaching task forces too. Kinsmen are kinsmen.
We can’t avoid these things. It’s our ignoble right, to us the academia, the men and women of higher learning, the fraternity that understands Plato, Aristotle, BCOM and Food Science, to ditch rationality and shelter under tribal groupings. We just can’t resist the urge.
As long as we have Wi-Fi, electricity and water running in our pipes, we don’t bother. The council can reflect a village in Nyamira, or highland in Nandi. We are too busy getting turned up, fornicating and stealing exams. We only bother when these fellows eat funds for the aforementioned purposes or slack around in securing our lives or expel a ‘comrade’ who has been championing for our ’rights’.
Sometime back Mr.Matiangi, I had a girlfriend in a university near Luanda, in western Kenya. And the girl was pretty sir, she still is. But oh, the culture shock that arrested me when I went visiting…
Every one, save a few, spoke in dholuo. I felt left out discriminated; from the students at the gate, to the librarian and head of hostels in the offices. I couldn’t know if those comrades had a plan to twist my neck and snatch my girlfriend or they were just being themselves; confined to their tribes and languages.
Mr Matiangi, just a few kilometers from where you were giving a graduation speech: Catholic University of Eastern Africa is my university. All the guards, if not a good number of them, are from Kisii and Kericho. And we are not complaining. We recognize diversity. The university managing board after all, is an equal opportunity, employer.
So, instead of putting a lot of energy into this noble course, which I assure you, will be met by political disagreement from local tribal barons, you can find a way of giving university education meaning. And oh, the HELB isn’t enough, ongeza mkono kidogo mheshimiwa. As you know, the prices of weed, shisha and liquor went up.
Nonetheless, thank you for the good job. Tighten that KNEC tap. No leakage. We, the comrades, can’t allow half baked, high school graduates amongst us.
