It’s time for varsities to stand up

By Kamotho Waiganjo

When then US Senator Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came calling, they chose the University of Nairobi as the venue for their dialogue with Kenya’s intelligentsia.

Their choice of the famous Taifa Hall was in recognition of the role universities traditionally play in defining the parameters of intellectual discourse on social and political issues. Unfortunately for Kenya, the days when the University of Nairobi played any significant role in determining the substance and tenor of public conversation are long gone.

Nothing makes this issue more obvious than the loud silence exhibited by our universities in the raging debates on key national concerns.

What is the University of Nairobi student body’s view on the post election violence tribunal? What does the Faculty of Law have to say about the reappointment of Aaron Ringera without due process? What about the structure of government proposed in the ongoing reform process?

In the days of yore, Gitobu Imanyara would have been subjected to vigorous interrogation on his Bill and Nzamba Kitonga would have received several invites to the university where he would not have escaped the wrath of the students if they felt his team was subverting the reform process. The student’s body would thereafter have articulated well-informed positions on these issues consistent with the institutions’ stature.

When did the rain start to beat these institutions? By the time Moi took over, Kenyatta’s dalliance with the university had ended. Their annual JM Kariuki commemorative riots had exhausted Jomo’s patience and crackdowns had begun. When Moi took over, he realised just how potent the universities were in determining the political temperature of the nation.

An attempt was made to accommodate the students, but when they strongly identified themselves with the 1982 coup, the honeymoon was over. What followed was a period of brutal assault on the universities.

Many liberal faculty were either detained or went to exile, some remain in exile to date. Moi also commenced a process of de-intellectualising the university population, first through district associations and secondly by de-professionalising faculty. By the end of his tenure, almost all senior appointments to the universities required political correctness.

What is sad is that even after the Narc government de-colonised them, the universities have refused to retake their positions as centres of vibrant discourse. Student leadership campaigns sound like the typical PNU-ODM contest, complete with ethnic delineations. Ideals and principle were long ago sacrificed on the political altar.

Faculty leadership is not significantly different; regionalism more than ideology is the glue that links many dons. Added to this is a tyrannical university administration that hardly allows vibrant liberal thinking.

What this scenario is producing is a nation where the young intelligentsia have no contribution to matters of national concern. Traditionally institutions of higher learning partnered with the churches and civil society in de-ethnicising national debate.

They defined ideals that the nation needed to aspire to. With the church wounded and civil society trying to regain its credibility, the university needs to reclaim its position as the carrier of sobriety and inspire hope for the nation.

The university administration needs to exploit its new freedoms to reignite vibrant interaction with nationalist ideals. It must not shackle student or faculty expression of flamboyant ideals, even if they are not politically correct. It must oversee the exorcism of the ghost of ethnicity and patronage.

For the student population, it is important to recognise that national leadership by the youth cannot be claimed on the basis of right. It must be anchored by a level of credibility and substance that is not currently evident within the corridors of higher learning.

Unless these institutions reclaim their lost glory, the youth will continue to complain of being left out in national leadership, but many will wonder whether they deserve it in any event.

Over to you folks.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court — [email protected]