Visions and lessons from Gichaga’s and Magoha’s ‘memoirs’

There has been a boom of biographies, autobiographies and memoirs in Kenya in the past decade. This trend appears to have been made easier by self-publishing, with the authors avoiding the rigours of editing and the quality demands of the established publishing houses. The country is now awash with biographies, memoirs and autobiographies from politicians, some of whom are in competition to explain their quests for political office.

MULTIPARTYISM

Two texts penned by former vice-chancellors of the University of Nairobi with experiences from different political periods, Prof Francis John Gichaga and Prof George Magoha, stand out.

In The Tower of Transformational Change by Prof Magoha and  Surviving the Academic Arena: My Complex Journey to the Top by Prof Gichaga, the dons elaborately devote chunks to their childhood and life outside office.

There are notable similarities and differences in the lives and times of Prof Gichaga and Prof Magoha. Prof Gichaga was vice-chancellor during a tumultuous period when the country was gearing up for multiparty democracy, against the wishes of the political establishment. The university community was deemed to have been operating in league with the opposition in agitating for a return to multipartyism. As Gichaga points out, “…the University [of Nairobi] was like a fuse for Kenyan society’s political circuit.” With the President as the chancellor of the universities, any university was like an extension of State House.

FOOD PRICES

As soon as he was appointed in 1991, the then Othaya legislator Mwai Kibaki resigned from Kanu and formed the Democratic Party. Because he hails from Nyeri, Kibaki’s home region, Gichaga faced a daunting task. While Nyeri people saw him as a traitor for working in a government they wanted to replace, the insiders in Moi’s government suspected him of spying for the opposition leader.

Another challenge for Gichaga was the management of the university under the Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Students were to look after themselves, and admissions were not controlled by accommodation space. A vice-chancellor of a public university had to carefully manage the transition to the ‘Pay as you eat’ and accommodation models. Soon, students started cooking in the hostels to avoid paying high prices of food at the university cafeterias. Any controls invited demonstrations and destruction of university property. And strikes were common whenever there was a slight disagreement with university administrations or the government. Strikes or demonstrations became “official” curriculum in university education. Prof Gichaga survived that period and often got into the midst of rowdy students who demanded immediate answers.

MANNERISMS

Unlike Gichaga, Prof Magoha ascended to the leadership of the University of Nairobi when the state was largely liberalised and chancellorship was delegated. There was an air of freedom, with the vice-chancellors guaranteed a tenure of five years, renewable once. The 2010 Constitution had created robust human rights articles, which were applauded throughout the world. He inherited a large population of students and staff.

Very little reference is made to the effort of Prof Gichaga for his vision to expand the University of Nairobi student population and teaching centres through the Module II (parallel) programme and the role the third President, Mwai Kibaki, in creating constituent colleges of the UoN, resulting in these large numbers.

The two former VCs present political changes in the country at the time they were at the helm of the UoN in a similar way. This similarity, however, does not hide their differences in childhood and individual mannerisms. Although Gichaga declares that he is writing a memoir on the dedication page, the text is quasi-autobiographical.

SMOOTH LIFE

The first five chapters are about the author’s childhood. The state of emergency in the colonial period took a toll on his family and his parents could not afford school fees for him and his siblings. He waded his way through primary and secondary school gripped by fear of losing his life to the marauding freedom fighters or the ruthless colonial police. On his part, the urbane Magoha romanticises his childhood. At 10 years, he left the village for Nairobi, where he spent his youthful years till he left for Nigeria for undergraduate and post-graduate studies. As he points out, “primary school education in Nairobi’s metropolis was far much better and of superior quality than that in Gem.”

The first 38 pages paint a picture of an individual living a smooth life, except for sickness in the village, which led to his move to Nairobi, and a gang life that introduced him to Kabbasselleh Ochieng’ of Lunna Success.

WORLDS APART

In his own words, had it not been for the director of Starehe Boys Centre and the hawk-eyed Patrick Shaw, the society might not have known the no-nonsense manager we know today. The lengthy narrative on matters outside his career and leadership shifts the text out of memoir league.

Such differences might cloud the similarities: both were raised in large families – Magoha had nine siblings while Gichaga had seven. They both have lean families regardless of their background and wealth: Magoha has a son and Gichaga two daughters.

Apart from such brief similarity, the texts display personalities who are worlds apart. The differences in upbringing are reflected in the humble and down-to-earth Gichaga versus the flamboyant and overbearing Magoha. To a keen reader, these differences in character are made more pronounced in the formats of the texts: Magoha’s glossy pages with 116 pages of jumbled-up photographs make the publication take the form of a pictorial magazine while Gichaga presents an academic text with photographs chronologically arranged and numbered to 95 in 43 pages.

TRANSFORMATIONAL

Gichaga shows faith in the University of Nairobi, an institution that shaped his academic life from undergraduate to becoming the vice-chancellor of the same university, by publishing with the University of Nairobi Press. Magoha, with a scanty connection with the institution, publishes his text with Kenway Publications.

It is in this act of distancing himself from a university he claims to have transformed that one notes a dent in his credence as a transformational leader. According to scholars of transformational leadership, the measure of the leader’s achievement is seen in the people led: Did Magoha make university staff and students to trust and admire him? Were they loyal to his ideas? Did he inspire them towards his mission and vision?

Prof Francis Owino Rew is a language consultant/educator