Now, University of Nairobi is butt of jokes; who will save us?
What you need to know:
Only the alumni can rescue their alma mater from the thugs.
Let’s start by clarifying the law on who and how we choose university leaders.
Let’s clean up the university council and set high standards for the appointment of its members.
Let’s sanction corruption and fakery at our universities without pity. Otherwise we are doomed.
I didn’t think it could get worse. But it has – to my utter amazement. Recently, my readers will recall that I excoriated Makerere University, once the gold standard, for becoming the butt of all jokes after it shockingly inaugurated the William Ruto Leadership Institute. Little did I know the vaunted University of Nairobi, which I attended – but from which I was expelled by the Moi-Kanu kleptocracy for my progressive politics – would disgrace itself in a heap of infamy and ridicule. It’s now the butt of jokes.
BRAZENLY MALIGNANT
There’s a cancer on the body politic of higher education in East Africa. From fake degrees at JKUAT and other universities, imposter professors, to endemic cheating, universities have become dungeons of the irredeemably corrupt.
As a senior educator, I’ve held positions of serious responsibility in American universities. I understand only too well the ethical challenges that bamboozle higher education. But what we’ve seen at Makerere, and now Nairobi, is of another order of magnitude. Individuals and governments that are ethically challenged and brazenly malignant have invaded the academy and infected it with something akin to mad cow disease. We’ve turned our once promising universities into dens of thieves and cabals of the worst among us. As our states have decayed – and become synonyms for corruption – our universities have sunk into the abyss with them. Excellence and meritocracy have become rumours only known to dying generations of the past.
STINTING MESS
The politicisation of the university, the fountain of knowledge, is the downfall of Makerere and Nairobi. The state can’t keep its hands off the university because it wants to control political thought and academic freedom. That’s why individuals who have no business walking on to a university campus, are appointed to university senates and councils – an unacceptable abomination. These bodies have become dumping grounds for the illiterate, those who have been rejected by the electorate, and unqualified ethnic cronies. Imagine such bodies appointing the administrative and academic leadership of a university. God have mercy on all of us. Methinks they have turned the university into another feeding trough for the pigs. It’s another site for societal rot.
But the academic staff, some of them bona fide professors who didn’t buy their papers or sleep their way up the scholarly ladder, have been swallowed by the sewer of corruption. When they are promoted to the top, they partake and perpetuate the stinting mess. That’s why what happened at the Masai Mara University was the norm, not an aberration. The theft was so brazen that reports indicate that even the university driver was calling the shots in a dastardly web of corruption woven by the vice chancellor. What’s sad is that this is the everyday, and none of those caught red handed will likely see the inside of a prison. They will retire to enjoy the taxpayer loot.
THE GODFATHERS
The shame of it all is that the professoriate, from whom the academic leadership of the university is drawn, is in cahoots with corrupt factions of the state and the university councils. How can such a university educate our children? Nay, how can such a university honourably bear that name? It’s not a secret that academic staff routinely trade grades and degrees for sexual favours, or bundles of cash. In other cases, politicians buy them to get fake degrees. In fact, some of the “professors” are frauds because they never earned their credentials and were never promoted – and yet insist on calling themselves professors. The Ministry of Education and the Commission for Higher Education are asleep at the switch.
In the last several weeks, Kenya has witnessed the putrid stench of political corruption and deliberate paralysis at the University of Nairobi. After VC Peter Mbithi was kicked out, the scramble among the maggots to fill his seat laid bare the sickness underneath. The council purported to appoint Prof Kiama Gitahi as VC only for Education CS George Magoha to dismiss him and abolish the council. Prof Magoha then appointed Prof Isaac Mbeche the acting VC. A court reinstated Prof Kiama who promptly sent Prof Mbeche on leave. Then Prof Kiama was kicked out. The mess continues. The spectacle pitted the university against itself and the state against the university. There’s no doubt key players have patrons and godfathers pulling strings. The university is disgraced.
RESTORE SANITY
The horrible food-fight between Prof Magoha, Prof Mbeche, and Prof Kiama speaks volumes about the depths to which the University of Nairobi has fallen. Who’s in charge? Who can restore sanity and dignity to one of the world’s historic universities? Alumni are extremely angry. Many have run for cover. But that’s wrong. Only the alumni can rescue their alma mater from the thugs. Let’s start by clarifying the law on who and how we choose university leaders. Let’s clean up the university council and set high standards for the appointment of its members. Let’s sanction corruption and fakery at our universities without pity. Otherwise we are doomed.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of KHRC. @makaumutua.
