WILL MAIN CAMPUS RISE ABOVE BOARD?

By Timothy Simwa

It is normal within the context of Kenyan politics for election campaigns to resume barely few days after the inauguration of a new president. You wake up to projections and queer speculation of who might succeed an incumbent president who is barely a week old in office. We are a country where politics precedes economy whereas issues of national concern are treated with relative ease and leisure. 

As we take a break from the aftermath of the general elections, thank the Almighty that sanity prevailed over intolerance, hate and hooliganism, even though contentment and dissatisfaction were expressed in equal measures about its outcome. This depended on your coalition of inclination. Accept and move on was the new slogan that only the Hassan-Oswago-led team can explain. Our lives remained the same anyway. 

But of great concern is a precedent that the last election seemed to have set. It is a general consistent trend that has culminated and, by extension, defined our belly-crawling university politics. Having been witnessed at the University of Nairobi student elections, and then replicated at the Town Campus, the arithmetic of tyranny might finally find its way to main campus.

Despite the fiasco surrounding the MUSO elections, it will be held someday. It is evident that Jubilee/CORD orientation might shape the next MUSO elections. Even though this might not augur well with aspirants from the minority, it is this plain truth you have to grapple with and a characteristic of fledgling democracy. As a matter of fact the next MUSO chairman and his team (the university has never had a chairlady last time I checked) will be a product of tribal groupings. It will be a slugfest devoid of real issues that are fueling discontent among comrades. 

Aspirants will have to assess their ethnicity count. It is the only apparent strategy for you to flex your way through and procure MUSO shops ownership. (Of course that is what motivates aspirants around here). If by any chance you hail from the Kenyan big five (refer to census 2009 if you have no idea who they are), you stand a favourable chance. I take no delight in writing this article knowing it won’t be a walk in the park for people I share pedigree with: the minority. 

I think the elites are the leading masters of hate speech and propaganda. They have been at their beat at Balkanizing the country into tribal fiefdoms. Kenyans have perfected the of art reducing and manipulating anything bizarre that finds its way into mainstream media to reflect the even distribution of CORD and Jubilee, or even worse skew it towards a particular ethnicity.

The Mombasa dog saga that portends a grave threat to our tender fabric of morality was trivialized by worrying CORD and Jubilee die-hards to achieve a balance in ethnic representation. In such instances the minority will find a reason to contend with our awkward position in this country. MUSO elections will obviously be another platform for tyrannical manifestations. But being a university with a difference, anything is possible. May the strong tyranny wins.