Merit, not ethnicity, should be guide to varsity appointments

Back in my younger days, when I was a university student, one of the first lessons I learnt was that there were only two social and cultural classes: “District Focus” and “Us Guys”.

DFs — as the first group was also called — were the chaps like myself who had either come from the village or the not-so-leafy suburbs of small towns.

“Us Guys” — also called Ozones — were the sons and daughters of the movers and shakers, the haves and the have-yachts.

Their fathers and mothers completed Nairobi’s list of who is who.

However, the question of where you came from did not arise unless you did not have enough money to pay the fare back home at the end of the semester.

Similarly, unless a lecturer had the heaviest accent north of the Nithi bridge or west of the River Yala, the question of what language he or she spoke was immaterial.

Indeed, what we most cared about was whether they were good at their jobs.

Incidentally, our vice-chancellor at the time was not the best of administrators.

Often, his decisions led us to the streets where we had our fair share of confrontations with riot police.

One of our student leaders used to say that part of the problem had to do with the fact that the VC was a professor of animal health.

Never once was the question of his ethnicity an issue.

Things may have changed now, but back in the day, ethnic profiling had no place at the university.

If someone achieved a feat, secured a position, or even made an error of judgement, the question of his ethnicity would never arise.

Each case was handled solely on the basis of its merits or demerits.

Although there were district associations for students, these did not stand out as social markers.

ENTRY OF ETHNICITY

What association you belonged to was immaterial.

If a student achieved a feat or sunk to the lowest depths, the most likely question we would ask was: is he DF or Ozone?

Much later, I came to learn from Prof Henry Olela that joining university was meant to make one a member of the “universal” family of knowledge seekers.

Indeed, attaining universality was the whole point of sending young people for higher education.

In the final analysis, the university was meant to make young people “lovers of knowledge”.

Prof Olela used to call knowledge “Sophia” and its lovers “Philos Sophia”.

These lovers of knowledge were meant to become opinion shapers, corporate and political leaders, and, ultimately, the leading merchants in the marketplace of ideas.

These were the men and women whose job it was to transform our society.

Unfortunately, some of the political leaders who went to university at around the same time I did appear determined to make the country march right back into the dark past.

They are saying that where you come from and your mother tongue should determine what position you can hold at a university.

They may feel aggrieved, and I acknowledge that the right to feel offended is a human right.

However, when this right is violated, there are mechanisms for righting such a wrong.

That mechanism is called the rule of law. It requires us to give up our desire to be prosecutor, judge, and jury by investing those powers in independent institutions.

This battle should be fought in the courts, not the streets.

The argument that the critics of Prof Laban Ayiro’s appointment should be making should be one of merit.

I have heard it said that he was not the most qualified man for the job.

However, his critics are yet to prosecute this argument even in the court of public opinion.

A BETTER KENYA

The result is that the rightness of their cause is lost in the muddle of the ethnic card they are brandishing.

Indeed, when Kenyans voted for the 2010 Constitution, they did so knowing that this would put universities outside of the control of county governments.

As far as education is concerned, the job of counties, and governors, starts and ends with nursery schools.

If Kenyans had wanted this to be otherwise, they would have said so six years ago.

This is not to say that our society has reached its highest point of achievement.

The men and women we have entrusted with leadership have made mistakes in the past.

Therefore, we are duty-bound to build strong public institutions and improve the way our country works.

We have come a long way since the days when vice-chancellors were appointed by the president.

Back in the day, caprice often influenced such decisions. Now, appointments are made by the Cabinet secretary for Education.

He, like all previous appointing authorities, is a man. All men are fallible. There is no folly in listening to critics and making appointments that are acceptable to all.

Mr Mbugua is deputy managing editor, Daily Nation. [email protected]