Day chaos rocked NYS

The noise drew closer and closer and their hearts beat a tattoo as most of them covered their heads in fear, then as if in synchronised motion the noise would fade away and they would breath but little sighs of relief for in a short while the noise would again draw closer and then fade again.

Uppermost on the minds of the 1988 female NYS pre-university students in this particular barracks was the thought of rape. At any time, they feared, the afandes or the male students would reach their barracks and all hell would break loose.

But what exactly was happening outside the barracks was not clear to the girls. "All we were certain about was that the NYS officers were in a sort of war with male students," says a female colleague who was then one of the recruits.

Already, some of the female officers had entered the barracks and conducted a search for male students they believed were sleeping in their barracks and some of the girls were scared.

What had began as preparation for the occasion that would mark Moi's 10th anniversary had turned into a seemingly ugly, full-scale war between the NYS officers and the male students. That was the night, the eve of the Nyayo Era celebrations that chaos had rocked the National Youth Service camp in Gilgil and was to culminate in the expulsion of the students from their universities and the eventual scrapping of the pre-university programme.

When Geoffrey Griffin helped set up the National Youth Service soon after independence, the main idea was to create opportunities for the youth to join in nation building.

Then came a decree by the government after the 1982 coup that all A-Level school leavers had to go through an induction period at the NYS before being enrolled in any of the national universities.

Griffin, the long serving NYS director said the programme was to inject self-reliance, confidence and maturity in the students as they participated in nation-building.

He said that the programme was to develop a spirit of national sacrifice, commitment and realisation of the wealth and potential in Kenya’s diversity in agriculture, ethnic composition and natural resources.

Female pre-university students were to go for induction at the Naivasha NYS camp while their male counterparts went to Gilgil NYS, a vast land, which neighboured the 3rd Battalion of the Kenya Armed Forces.

Several batches of pre-university students came and passed the induction courses peacefully until 1988, four months after the retirement of founder director Griffins.

Griffins had retired in June 1988 after 24 years at the helm.

On September 29, 1988, two weeks after completing their training at NYS, all 7,000 first year students in all the four public universities – Nairobi, Kenyatta, Moi and Egerton, were asked to report to the NYS service camp at Gilgil to prepare for the Nyayo Era celebrations, which had been set for October 10, 1988.

This time, the students some of who had reported to their respective universities had expected to be treated with more decency than they had been earlier, on their return. "But we were shocked to realise that the officers did not respect us as graduates. They still harassed us and called us names expecting us to do all the difficult exercises we had done when we were servicemen," says Michel Jaoko.

Jaoko, now a business management consultant says that there was tension from the morning the students started arriving.

"Registration was slow and there was limited accommodation especially for men," he says. Things were made even more difficult by the fact that the camp was also accommodating female students who had earlier been accommodated at Naivasha.

"We were given strict rules that we were not supposed to walk around with our female counterparts," adds Ndegwa Wachira. "But we thought that all we went back for was preparation for the march past we were to perform for the president during the celebrations. These rules seemed draconian since we were not service men any more. We had not been told that were going to be subjected to such rules when we were being recalled," says Wachira, now a senior teacher at Starehe Boys Centre.

He says that after the passing out of the students, there was a new feeling of freedom among the students given that they had already reported to campus and mingled freely with their colleagues both male and female.

"Being told that we were to go back to what we considered a concentration camp and to face the 'inhuman' officers, was not going to go down well with many of the students," he says.

With the registration going on for two days, the students spent the first day after being recalled mingling and sharing their experiences in campus. The officers on the other hand were busy trying to sort out the chaotic situation brought about by the large number of students who had reported. They were also busy trying to insist on their rules being followed by ensuring that male students remained on their side of the barracks away from their female counterparts.

It became evident that keeping the male students from mingling with the ladies was going to be a herculean task. It was even more difficult to keep them within the precincts of the camp.

By late afternoon, some students had gone out of the compound to the nearby drinking joint while back at the camp tension built.

They strolled back in the night against the laid down NYS rules that no one is allowed to go drinking or come late to the barracks.

In the morning, the tension had reached fever pitch and students had now ganged up ready to take on the officers whom they accused of high-handedness.

Oblivious of the tension that was building up, Wachira strolled into the camp moments before 5pm on October 9 and promptly went to register.

He had arrived from Nyeri and was unaware of the goings on in the camp.

But even before he could register, a group of students who were already angered at how they were being treated started hurling stones at the officers. They were joined in by others who were in the barracks.

"The officers were caught unawares, they did not expect the students to turn on them. There was a feeling among them that when we were there for induction, they had instilled fear amongst us to a level they never saw a situation where a university student would stand up against them," says Wachira.

"When we were there we were treated as recruits in a military camp or victims at a concentration camp. We were subjected to strenuous training and treated with little or no dignity. We were not to question any authority, doing so would mean severe punishment," he says.

So on graduating from NYS Wachira says, it was like Christmas coming early. The students hoped they were not going to be subjected to such treatment ever again. But they were very wrong. Immediately on arrival, they realised they were to go through the same drilling. This they vowed to resist.

There being a stalemate and the officers who were proud to be called afandes out to prove they were in charge, the fracas began.

Stones were hurled from all corners, the NYS officers unaware of how to deal with such a situation started clobbering the students who retreated to the nearby forest.

"The students, most of them very fit physically after the three months training they had received in the same terrain, and backed by their large numbers were much stronger than the officers," Wachira says.

He says he nearly died after a huge stone was thrown towards him as he fled from the chaos. "I was running from the afandes to join my colleagues who had taken cover in the bush when one of my colleagues probably mistaken that I was an afande threw a big stone towards me. I was lucky it missed me, I probably would be dead," he says.

As they ran deeper into the forest, Wachira says he reached a cliff and nearly fell. He says he must have ran up to 20-30 kilometres deep into the forest. "I literally ran for almost six hours in the dark not knowing where I was going. It was very cold and I did not have warm clothing on me," he says.

He adds that he spent the night in the forest fearing for his life. Police choppers hovering above and other officers were in search. Army officers from the nearby 3rd Battalion camp, General Service Unit officers, Anti-Stock Theft personnel and regular police were called in by the government to help NYS officers in repulsing the students.

It is feared that some students died in the fracas though no records are available.

"You see, some of us had yet to register, we were as many as 5,000 students so it is hard to say who went missing or died in the fights but what I know is there were so many serious injuries because the officers were ruthless in fighting us," says Wachira.

There were also fears that some female students were sexually assaulted in the process. But the then University of Nairobi vice chancellor Professor Phillip Mbithi denied that there had been no reports of rape or deaths.

Students who had come from drinking in the early hours of the evening were the most unlucky. They entered the camp premises to the waiting hands of the officers who vented their rage on them. Some were crippled in the process.

"I was lucky I got a safe place deep in the forest. But it was the worst night of my life, I could not sleep. It was extremely cold and just the fear of police catching up with me made it even worse."

When they returned to the barracks in the morning, the students were promptly sent home with orders to report to their local chief four times a week.

"This was yet another humbling experience because my local chief would use abusive language and harass us whenever we reported."

For over one month, reporting to the chief four times a week became Wachira’s routine. "It is like being confined without being necessarily locked behind bars. Four days in a week you cannot go anywhere," he says.

By midnight all exit points from Gilgil had been sealed by security officers who were checking all public vehicles to flush out any student.

The following morning after calm had been restored and students assured that the chaos were over, some started returning to the camp. But not all returned, most had taken off. Four days after the fracas, the students who had fled were ordered back to the camp by 5pm of October 13. Some of those who had returned to Nairobi University campus were collected under heavy security by Nyayo buses.

At Gilgil, they were ordered to collect their belongings and vacate immediately. Lorry loads of riot policemen and GSU personnel were strategically placed round the college and the main road to Nairobi and Nakuru as the students left. The security men checked their baggage to ensure they did not carry government property.

Once all of them had been cleared, they were informed that they had been expelled from the university. They were told to go to their rural homes and await further directive. Meanwhile, they were to report to their local chiefs four times a week without fail.