Dr GG Kariuki and why Kenya needs philosopher kings

The crowd attending the University of Nairobi’s 54th graduation ceremony on Friday burst into wild cheers when the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Peter Mbithi, said in his opening speech that Senator GG Kariuki of Laikipia County was one of the 84 candidates to receive doctor of philosophy degrees.

At 76, Mr Kariuki became practically the oldest public leader to study for and earn a PhD from a Kenyan university.

Hitherto, his long walk to the helm of the academy remained unknown in the public sphere.

‘A man who has seen it all’— this is how the Sunday Nation (November 17, 2013), aptly, described Mr Kariuki in its special coverage of his spectacular election as Senator for Laikipia in 2013.

This is the GG Kariuki we know in the public sphere — a man who has been in the echelons of power for over 50 years and served all the four presidents in independent Kenya as a legislator and Cabinet minister.

I first encountered this intellectual side of Senator Kariuki in 2001 at the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC).

He gave me a copy of his newly published autobiography, Illusion of Power: Fifty Years in Kenya Politics, a bold reflection on his half-century in politics rare among Kenyan politicians.

Kariuki had just finalised his master’s degree in international studies from Salve Regina University in the US.

Over a decade later, I encountered his intellectual spark again when I joined the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (IDIS) at the University of Nairobi.

I served as his internal examiner along Kariuki’s lead supervisor and the Institute’s Director, Prof Maria Nzomo.

Senator Dr Kariuki’s foray into the intellectual arena is intriguing.

When I asked him why he opted to study for his PhD and not seek a honorary degree, he confided that he was actually tipped to get a honorary doctorate from one of the local universities.

INTRIGUING STORIES

But he decided to walk the straight and narrow path to the helm of the academy.

Why a wealthy, famous and powerful man in the corridors of power would want to spend seven good years toiling in the lowly corridors of knowledge is perplexing.

In one sense, Kariuki’s work in the University of Nairobi speaks to the noble idea of the intrinsic value of knowledge — the knowledge for its own sake thesis.

His doctorate brings to mind another Kenyan, the late Kimani Maruge, an ordinary villager who enrolled in elementary education at the age of 84 after President Mwai Kibaki’s government announced universal and free primary education in 2003.

Maruge’s equally intriguing story jolted the world to act, inspiring the 2010 biographical drama film, the First Grader, directed by Justin Chadwick.

It is a stinging indictment on us as a society that not a single Kenyan university posthumously awarded Maruge a well-deserved and long-overdue honorary degree (honoris causa) for reminding us of the intrinsic and redemptive power of knowledge. It is worth dying for.

In different ways, the thirst for knowledge by Maruge and Kariuki is captured in the legend of Euclid, the renowned Greek mathematician, often referred to as the “father of geometry”.

A beginning student of geometry asked Euclid, “What shall I get by learning these things?”

An angry Euclid called out saying, “Give him a coin, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”

Since time immemorial civilisations have valorised and studied for knowledge for its own sake, for its intrinsic value, beauty and elegance as the ultimate creative force in the universe.

In this nuanced context, one of the Holy Books (Bible) says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”— the all-powerful author of the universe.

EDUCATION COMMERCIALISATION

Second, Kariuki’s work reminds us of the folly of the logic of unbridled commercialisation of education in our times.

“Knowledge for its own sake is of no use to anyone,” one Kenyan academic told a high-level conference of educators.

This reflects the intellectual hubris driving the commercialisation of the knowledge industry.

In a gist, the commercial logic in education revolves around the debate on “the relevance of university education”.

This debate has injected a strong financial element to the quest for knowledge.

It has also reinforced the idea that knowledge is a means to an absolute end: employment, rewards and repositioning in the job market. It is never an end in itself!

At the administrative level, this logic requires that knowledge institutions run like enterprises.

The new emphasis on budgetary cost-effect, resource mobilisation, product evaluation and corresponding adjustment has affected the hiring policy, especially of quality staff.

At the instructional level, commercialisation has engendered a new relationship between teachers and students.

The whole process of teaching and learning is treated as cost-effect affair, depersonalising the whole process of knowledge generation and sharing.

Third, Kariuki’s quest for knowledge taps into the veins of an old idea of knowledge as power.

This idea drove Africa’s liberation struggle.

NEVER TO OLD FOR SUCCESS

It also explains why the liberation-era leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah or Amilcar Cabral were prolific writers and “philosopher kings”.

This notion of rulers as philosopher kings harkens back to Plato’s Utopian Kallipolis, an ideal city-state where rulers are wisdom-lovers, and where “philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophise.”

A “true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship,” Plato declared.

Dr Kariuki attended the Lancaster conferences in the 1960s, which has inspired his doctoral thesis:

“The Lancaster Constitutional Negotiation Process and its Impact on Foreign Relations of Post-colonial Kenya, 1960-1970”.

Unsurprisingly, his doctoral work reflects the liberation-era nexus between wisdom and justice, knowledge and power.

At 76, Kariuki shows that one cannot be too old to seek education. Knowledge is power.