Multimedia university of Kenya elections

The political ambiance of the whole country is tensed up to the point it’s almost tangible.

Every Kenyan who has experienced the chaos that comes with campaigns and elections is silently wishing Kenya was a monarch where the throne will just be handed down to the next of kin, but again they all want to feel they have a say on who leads them for the next five years. 

That’s the dilemma that the students at Multimedia University are facing during this period of student leaders elections. 

On one hand they want the whole thing never existed and the leaders were chosen by the lecturers like the primary school prefects on the hand they want to feel grown up and in control of what trajectory their lives take and I guess the only way to prove you are not a child anymore is by voting of some kind. Any kind. 

Politics is a game of looters and pillagers. Not only nationally but in institutions such as universities too. I have seen bribes being passed in the name of token of appreciation for the implied support. I have seen goons being hired to disrupt the competitor’s campaigns. 

I have seen the students who are presumably in the highest level of learning focus on flashy-ness of the candidates rather than the content of their manifestos. I have seen people with honor, integrity and were physically fit being elected into office and a year later look like bloated hyenas and with souls dirtier than the rugby player’s socks. 

The candidates’ debate which was supposed to be used as a platform for the candidates to present their agendas and the richness of their manifestos was turned into a Gor-AFC derby where the whole process was turned into a rally for the aspirants to showboat their resources and how rowdy their supporters can get. 

If you passed outside the university walls, you could sense the calmness. Not the calm before the storm. No, far from it. It’s the calm during the storm. The calm that holds everything from falling apart. A calm that is formed out of people pussyfooting around a situation afraid that one misstep the situation will snap and just like that hell will break loose. 

I have seen three elections held in this university but this is by far the rowdiest and the most volatile. Eggshells are littered all over and we all have to tiptoe not to be the ones held responsible for letting shit to hit the fan. 

The competition is healthy. It shows how far as a school we’ve grown democratically but it comes with its own plunge. The responsibility to keep the peace and the integrity of the student administration lies squarely on us the students. Yes, take the lollipop. Eat the free lunch. 

Drink the alcohol, irresponsibly if you like. Shout the loudest the name of your preferred candidate but at the end of the day think. Will they get the office and start recovering the expenditure they used on their campaigns or help us grow as a university. 

Then vote as a person with at least the access to basic common sense if not rationality gained from attaining higher learning education.