Ken Ouko: Kenyans pay glowing tribute to humorous, beloved don

Ken Ouko [Photo: Courtesy]

Ken Ouko treated his classroom like a theatre. His students at the University of Nairobi where he taught for more than 20 years were his audience. He held their attention with his mastery of sociology and psychology, roiled them with his storytelling skills, and made many of them fall in love with sociology; a subject that many had feared was being edged out as many people opted for hard sciences.

The dramatic pauses, deep laughter, and relevant examples of the things that defined humanity made his lectures popular among many. “He never came to class with a book, but he would quote authors and pages of articles and write 10 pages off hand. He dressed very elegantly and he was humorous and witty. He would buy us breakfast in class,” Hassan Ali, a former student wrote in one of the many tributes that streamed online and off the net when news broke that Ouko had succumbed to Covid-19 on Saturday morning.