How a weak education system almost betrayed Ken Walibora

I first stumbled upon Ken Walibora’s name when I joined Olkejuado High School for an A-Level course in 1985.

I was scavenging through old journals in the school library when I came across a copy of the school magazine, which had since folded. The magazine’s editor was one Kennedy Waliaula Wafula, who had left the school at Form Four three years earlier.

He changed his name to Ken Walibora when he started writing books years later.

I liked the magazine, and especially articles written by Kennedy. I went a step further and sought out the teacher who had been patron of the school magazine and told him I would be interested to revive the publication.

He liked the idea and took me to the school headmaster, Mr Eliud Simiyu. The school head was excited about it and remarked to the teacher: “Go ahead and help him do it. All along I have been wishing there was another Kennedy to give us a magazine.”

I and two other boys — Sheth Ogonji and Githinji Ngugi — re-launched the school magazine. In the process I got interested in a career in journalism.

***

Seven years ago, Kennedy — now Ken Walibora — recalled the role our headmaster had played in making him a writer.

Writing in the Saturday Nation of September 13, 2013, he said: “I have fond memories of his (Mr Simiyu’s) eloquent speeches during Monday morning assembly, his impeccable command of English and Kiswahili, and his captivating anecdotes.

“I remember him now as I trace my writing life. He had noted early that, given my aptitude and attitude, I was well cut out for a writing life. My contributions in the school magazine, and my exceptional compositions in English and Kiswahili, had set me apart among my peers.

“I sat in Mr Simiyu’s office as we talked about my career options. I even had a dalliance with fine art, showing him my drawings, the pedestrian products of my imagination made during precious times when I should have been studying physics and mathematics and history. My mentor never scoffed at my artwork. He knew I had the potential to become a writer, and I am eternally grateful to him.”

***

From Olkejuado, Ken went for A-Levels at Koelel High School in Nakuru. Dr Muiru Ngugi of the University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism picks up the story from there.

They were in same A-Level class. They called him Alufa, a reverse reading of the name Wafula. He was a great soccer player, Dr Ngugi reckons.

“A lanky kid who played the goalkeeper and was the captain of the school soccer team, who broke his leg to have Koelel win a match.”

Dr Ngugi recalls their common class in English Literature. Ken’s other favourite subjects were Kiswahili and Geography. He was a genius when it came to languages, he says.

While many know his prowess in Kiswahili, he could write equally well in English. Indeed, English was his language of deep scholarship, and wrote his PhD and several academic papers in the language.

At Koelel, he regaled fellow students with poems, which he translated to Kiswalihi (mashairi), or the other way round — Kiswahili to English.

Dr Ngugi wishes some of those early works will be re-discovered and published posthumously.

***

After A-Level, Ken trained as a probation officer. It happened that, despite all his exploits in written word while in high school, when he wrote his final examinations at the A-Level he didn’t meet the cut-off points for university education.

He couldn’t even get admission at the then only diploma college teaching journalism, the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC).

So he ended up at the Kenya Institute of Administration (KIA) in Kabete for a diploma in probation services. His first port of call was the Kenya Prison Service as a probation officer.

Years later he would recall: “My cube mate at KIA would read my Kiswahili short stories and marvel at my writing skills. Some colleagues even intimated I must be Tanzanian because of my command of Kiswahili.”

He began writing the Kiswahili novel, Siku Njema, when in final year at KIA. “My colleagues kept saying I had gone astray studying to be a probation officer”, he was to write.

He would work as a probation officer until 1996 when the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) discovered the broadcaster, writer and editor in him.

He was given a job as a newscaster and also appointed the Kiswahili service news editor.

It is while at KBC that Ken returned to school for a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Kiswahili at the University of Nairobi. There he discovered his other side — the scholar — and read all the way to a PhD.

***

Reflecting on Ken’s career makes one rethink our education system. And here I will talk as an “old boy” of the school he and I attended.

At Olkejuado High School, emphasis was on science subjects because we all wanted to be engineers and doctors. Nobody told us that in-between we could even be middle-level technicians, who are in short supply in the country.

Perhaps that will be resolved in the newly introduced Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). And for that I will quote a manual we were given at my boy’s school.

It is important I do so lest Prof George Magoha forgets and shortchanges us on this. Who doesn’t know about our government notoriety for promising the moon only to deliver sand!

The manual states: “The new curriculum seeks to develop the learners’ skills and competence, especially in the areas they are gifted in. The learner will spend most of their time mostly working and using materials and experiencing the learning process as opposed to being taught and doing written assignments.”

Back to Ken. We met for the first time in 1999, when the Nation Media Group launched a radio and a television station and snatched him from the state broadcaster.

We were employed at about the same time, me in the print section as a special projects writer.

On the day we got our appointment letters, we met at the parking lot outside Nation Centre. I introduced myself and told him that I, like him, was an Olkejuado High School “old boy”, and that it is the school magazine he produced that interested me in writing.

He was so happy about it, and there and then challenged me: “Now I want you to write a book. I will edit it for free and recommend you to a publisher.”

The lazy bone in me didn’t take the challenge. Three years ago when I started writing this column (actually today is the column’s exact third birthday, the first one having appeared on April 22, 2017), Ken emailed to say that he was still waiting to read my first book.

I remember his exact last words to me: “Kamau, I have read so many of your newspaper articles. When am I seeing a book?”

Now I must do one lest his spirit returns to haunt me. Rest in peace, old boy, and great man.

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