Games university administrations play in student politics

If things had gone as planned and if the students’ wish had prevailed, either of the three leading contenders — the fetching beauty Daphine Githuku, the pompous Apiyo Apiyo or the moneyed Jamal Birkan — would have become the first president of the University of Nairobi Students Association (UNSA).

For several months, the trio had run well-oiled campaigns in which they poured millions of shillings in efforts to woo the University of Nairobi (UoN) students to vote for them.

But as the elections neared, a surprise sprang up.

TENURE

The university administration declined to clear Ms Githuku, Mr Apiyo and Mr Birkan to vie, citing a number of issues ranging from failing in examination units and indiscipline to suspension.

Their appeals were unsuccessful. And with that, their student political leadership journey came to an abrupt stop.

So, when students woke up one morning, they were told that an unpopular aspirant known as Anthony Manyara had been sworn in as the students’ union president after the disqualification of all his opponents.

“It felt like a robbery to a majority of the students. They felt that the administration had imposed someone on them.

“We were in office but students felt that we were stooges of the vice-chancellor,” recalls Phelister Nyamongo, a fiery student leader who served as the UNSA treasurer during Mr Manyara’s tenure.

In this month’s student elections, the UoN administration pulled a similar card.

First, they disqualified Mr Manyara from competing to retain his seat on the pretext that he faked the signature of a faculty dean when he filled his nomination papers. His appeal was unsuccessful.

Second, the administration played games with Samuel Ayoma, a fiery student seen as the most popular aspirant for president after they toyed around with his qualification to vie.

PROTEST

By the time Mr Ayoma was cleared to vie, his main opponent, Ann Mvurya, the eventual winner, was already miles ahead on the campaign trail.

According to Sunday Nation's sources, the games that are played at the UoN by the administration are familiar across other universities. The managements will go to any lengths to install their preferred candidates in office.

“The result of this action is that genuine students who are popular never get to win or even participate in the union elections,” laments Edith Mwirigi, the first and only female student leader to have ever been elected as secretary-general of the powerful Students Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu), now known as UNSA.

Investigations by the Sunday Nation have established that in the past five years alone, dozens of popular student politicians were disqualified from competing for elections for various reasons, with outspoken students being the majority.

The university administrations are being bolstered by the Universities Amendment Act 2016, which gives sweeping powers to the management to decide on who gets to the ballot.

In one of the public universities, one of the far-fetched reasons for disqualifying a popular student leader was that he was dating the daughter of the dean of students instead of concentrating on his studies.

At the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, the institution in 2016 failed to clear a student leader known as George Mosi to vie for the student union’s presidency after he led a peaceful protest against plans to increase school fees.

POWERLESS

“Also in 2017, the administration failed to clear another popular student known as Godfrey Amachuku to vie for president, paving the way for his unpopular opponent to win.

“The administration failed to give reasons as to why Amachuku was not cleared,” recalls Desmond Sagwe, the students’ union secretary for sports and entertainment at the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology.

In one of the most notorious cases in 2017, a few weeks to students’ union elections, the Kenyatta University administration suspended powerful student leader Morara Kebaso and then used the move to bar him from competing for the presidency of the Kenyatta University Students Association (Kusa), a seat which it was believed he would easily win. Apparently, Mr Kebaso was suspended for posting an ‘inappropriate’ message on social media.

“The suspension was aimed at temporarily blocking me from contesting the position of Kusa chairperson (president),” he argues in court papers in a case he has filed against the university in which he wants his suspension to be quashed.

Many of the disqualified students blame their woes on the Universities Amendment Act 2016, which has virtually rendered student unions powerless.

The Act provides for the election of student leaders through electoral college as opposed to universal suffrage of one person one vote, thus ensuring that students do not directly vote for their student council officials.

HOOLIGANS

According to the Act, the student association is governed by a council comprising a chairperson and a vice chairperson who must be of opposite gender, a treasurer, a secretary-general who is the secretary to the council, and three other members to represent special interests among the students. Officials of the student council are elected from three selected delegates from elected officials in various campuses of the university.

The UoN administration and a section of students who intended to stop the then Sonu Chairman Babu Owino from competing for the chairperson position for the fifth year running coined the amendments to the regulations governing how students vote for their union officials.

“It was a genuine concern that it had become difficult to stop Owino from the Sonu presidency due to his deep pockets, unrelenting persistence and the fact that he controlled hooligans who played a big role in campaigns,” remembers journalist Silas Nyanchwani, who headed the process to amend the laws.

Mr Owino was elected Sonu chairperson for three years when he was a student of Actuarial Science.

After his graduation, he joined UoN’s Parklands Campus as a law student and vied and won the chairperson’s seat for the fourth time.

After that, he once again sought admission to the UoN medical school through which he intended to vie for the position of Sonu chairperson.