By Mohammed Doyo
If there is anything Moi University politicians have taught us is that you needn't have the slightest students’ interest at heart to make it in the murky world of Main Campus politics; not an inkling. Actually the first steps towards a successful stint as a campus politician in Moi Main Campus is to understand the essence of the saying ‘fake it till you make it’. If you don’t believe this, you can as well ask the sitting SGC members.
And how do you become an activist, the main campus way? To begin with, manipulate your close associates from your community to think like you. Transform them into die-hard sycophants, and let them be seen with you in public more often than you are seen with hand-outs or library books.
After marshalling a good number of sycophants, let’s say 8-13, identify a cause to champion for. For example come up with a cause like ‘Operation Transcripts Out’. Come up with a name for your group like ‘Transcripts Sasa’.
Visit all the major administrative offices in the campus starting with the Dean of Students while speaking tough, more like deputy president Ruto interrogating Bungoma Police boss. Threaten the administrators with the popular phrase ‘comrades are fully behind us’ while in your mind, only your roommate, girlfriend, and horde of sycophants are behind you.
Tea will start coming your way in these offices. Again, the administrators will be forced to start laughing with you lest you unleash angry ‘comrades’ upon them. Cash and other sorts of undeserved rewards will come in handy. You know, to facilitate the realization of your cause. At this point, you will have achieved your number one goal – To ‘eat’ while at the same time appearing as an activist in the eyes of the students.
Let’s go back to the students. Keep telling them how you are fighting for their rights. Facebook helps much here. On popular campus pages and forums, explain how you have been spending sleepless nights championing for their rights. Again, don’t forget to make use of the bombastic flowery rhetoric you plagiarized from Martin Luther’s ‘I have a dream’. It will work magic on the virtual walls.
At the students’ centre, don’t ignore the small gatherings. Feigning a Raila-ish accent and Patrice Lumumba rhetoric, inform them on how you are ‘fighting for their rights’.
However, it isn’t a smooth journey all through. Opposition may arise from students who understand your real motives and want to ‘expose’ you. Be quick to brand them ‘enemy of the comrades’ – starting with The 3rd Eye.
Well, by the time you reach here, your popularity will have reached the 50%+1 threshold. Again, you will have already made a mark in the campus political circles and eaten enough to warrant the title ‘The campus activist’ or better still ‘The voice of the comrades’.
All the best!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
FROM PUPPET TO PUPPETEER: PART 1
By Henry Adera
Okay, okay, okay. I've had it, and so have you. Campus ladies this, campus ladies that, campus ladies are all washed up…you got the wrong equation. Man, every lady goes through transitions. “Why I won’t marry a campus chick”, “HELB terrorists”, “The pocket gangsters…” plus many nasty titles have sprung up because of them. However, I want to stand up tall for them today, not that I haven’t gone through hell in their hands, but because I've also made some of them wish they were fire pokers in hell rather than living here. Let me outline it in this manner:
First year…They come with very high expectations. We’re in campus, aren't we? Some used to be CU chair ladies in their former High Schools. Mark my words, chair ladies. Immediately they pass through that white gate, you know the one adjacent to the St. Michaels Arch-angel Catholic Church, all hell breaks loose. Perhaps that’s why the church is located outside the gate in the first place. They are then branded fresh names - freshers. Nearly every male comrade gets himself a new catch, rendering the third and fourth year ladies ‘worn out’.
It’s a universal fact that women are emotive. Now, coming from a world where they used to be considered ‘old’ and ‘used up’ (high school) to a completely new world where they are all ‘fresh’ (campus), picture it this way: it’s like giving a monkey the key to an amusement park. The appearance doesn't matter. Some look like earth angels, the rest look like my left foot. All the same, they all end up getting cohorts in mint condition.
Second year…This is where the tussles begin. Their eyes are ‘opened’, letter S becomes letter X and “sorry” becomes “sowwy.” Fracas gets new clientèle; the academic highway becomes a beauty arcade with all kinds of fashion disasters. The new ‘husbands’ become overwhelmed with their new 'wives' high financial demands and start to flee, of course leaving footprints behind in form of first degrees which become living after nine months if at all the degree holder doesn't opt to defer, read between the lines.
This is also the point where headlines like “Why I won’t marry a campus chick” and ‘The HIVo HIVo list’ pop up. But who is to blame? These ‘spoilt’ oestrogen-bearing creatures came to campus completely chaste. Some had stable relationships, others were daddy’s girls and of course, a few were respected CU chair ladies. Supposing they were left that way to pursue their bachelor’s degrees in peace, would there be broken hearts, botched abortions and ‘living degrees’? No, sir there wouldn't. Now these disastrous incidences only ensue to naïve and cheap ladies.
Look, I'm aware that we all have blood running in our veins, not cold water, and that we have hearts, not glaciers in our chests. Men come from between women’s legs and spend the rest of their lives trying to get back there, perhaps because there’s no better place like home. But hey, what of if we consecrate that special feeling to one special person, where every man tries to find and build his home with one lady? What a perfect world this would be!
Third year…this is the ‘rusting’ stage for ladies whereas it’s the ‘recycling’ stage for their male comrade counterparts. Few sensible ladies open their eyes further and realize it’s high time they found worthy partners who have the potential of putting up a roof over their heads. On the other hand, some misfits of ‘swaggeriffic’ men repeat the cycle of destroying unsuspecting female first years. Shame on you!
So, are ladies to blame for their campus behaviour? No. Some nincompoops make them what they are. When you happen to have been raised up in a religious family, you are definitely familiar with the “Almighty God, my daughter is going to campus. Keep her safe and protect her from the devil…” prayer line. Yes, some come to campus right into the hands of some social ‘devils’. It’s up to you female comrades. Be cheap and mix body fluids with different spray guns or be a lady of quality, stick to one man and build up a healthy relationship. The choice is yours.
Okay, okay, okay. I've had it, and so have you. Campus ladies this, campus ladies that, campus ladies are all washed up…you got the wrong equation. Man, every lady goes through transitions. “Why I won’t marry a campus chick”, “HELB terrorists”, “The pocket gangsters…” plus many nasty titles have sprung up because of them. However, I want to stand up tall for them today, not that I haven’t gone through hell in their hands, but because I've also made some of them wish they were fire pokers in hell rather than living here. Let me outline it in this manner:
First year…They come with very high expectations. We’re in campus, aren't we? Some used to be CU chair ladies in their former High Schools. Mark my words, chair ladies. Immediately they pass through that white gate, you know the one adjacent to the St. Michaels Arch-angel Catholic Church, all hell breaks loose. Perhaps that’s why the church is located outside the gate in the first place. They are then branded fresh names - freshers. Nearly every male comrade gets himself a new catch, rendering the third and fourth year ladies ‘worn out’.
It’s a universal fact that women are emotive. Now, coming from a world where they used to be considered ‘old’ and ‘used up’ (high school) to a completely new world where they are all ‘fresh’ (campus), picture it this way: it’s like giving a monkey the key to an amusement park. The appearance doesn't matter. Some look like earth angels, the rest look like my left foot. All the same, they all end up getting cohorts in mint condition.
Second year…This is where the tussles begin. Their eyes are ‘opened’, letter S becomes letter X and “sorry” becomes “sowwy.” Fracas gets new clientèle; the academic highway becomes a beauty arcade with all kinds of fashion disasters. The new ‘husbands’ become overwhelmed with their new 'wives' high financial demands and start to flee, of course leaving footprints behind in form of first degrees which become living after nine months if at all the degree holder doesn't opt to defer, read between the lines.
This is also the point where headlines like “Why I won’t marry a campus chick” and ‘The HIVo HIVo list’ pop up. But who is to blame? These ‘spoilt’ oestrogen-bearing creatures came to campus completely chaste. Some had stable relationships, others were daddy’s girls and of course, a few were respected CU chair ladies. Supposing they were left that way to pursue their bachelor’s degrees in peace, would there be broken hearts, botched abortions and ‘living degrees’? No, sir there wouldn't. Now these disastrous incidences only ensue to naïve and cheap ladies.
Look, I'm aware that we all have blood running in our veins, not cold water, and that we have hearts, not glaciers in our chests. Men come from between women’s legs and spend the rest of their lives trying to get back there, perhaps because there’s no better place like home. But hey, what of if we consecrate that special feeling to one special person, where every man tries to find and build his home with one lady? What a perfect world this would be!
Third year…this is the ‘rusting’ stage for ladies whereas it’s the ‘recycling’ stage for their male comrade counterparts. Few sensible ladies open their eyes further and realize it’s high time they found worthy partners who have the potential of putting up a roof over their heads. On the other hand, some misfits of ‘swaggeriffic’ men repeat the cycle of destroying unsuspecting female first years. Shame on you!
So, are ladies to blame for their campus behaviour? No. Some nincompoops make them what they are. When you happen to have been raised up in a religious family, you are definitely familiar with the “Almighty God, my daughter is going to campus. Keep her safe and protect her from the devil…” prayer line. Yes, some come to campus right into the hands of some social ‘devils’. It’s up to you female comrades. Be cheap and mix body fluids with different spray guns or be a lady of quality, stick to one man and build up a healthy relationship. The choice is yours.
DO THE VILLAGERS STILL COUNT ON ME?
By Remington Miheso
When the people of my village congregated to offer prayers for me before coming to the university two years ago, they never visualized what they were subjecting their ‘very holy’ and ‘innocent' kid to. One of them even had the guts to tell me, “You will sure love where you are going, huko kuna kila kitu enda usome uje utufunze sisi”.
I can’t blame him for one reason: despite being the headmaster of our village school, the farthest he had travelled was to our neighbouring village about three kilometres away. He had gone to find a wife for me, their ‘innocent’ boy who had never spoken to a lady, leave alone touched them. They offered to hire vans to ferry those willing to escort me to school, a school where after crachu-eting, I would be able to solve all problems in the village, including treating cattle and advising youths.
These are the same youths who had decided to venture into business and do those things that are done by their parents. (Nowadays I am told it’s barter trade where you get a laptop after giving birth). I wished they could amass the money used to hire those vans and give it to me. The 'mama mbogas' of Moi High School would have known who I am. What was the essence of a whole village travelling to this school? Kwani nasomea degree tatu?
All this was in spite of the fact that I wasn’t the only one in university from that village. The others though, after graduating had decided that they would become heroes in drinking chang’aa. That’s the reason why the whole village had to ask The Almighty not to let me do the same. To them, I would be a role model to the young who had the ambitions of studying in this university, a place where all freedom is guaranteed, even the freedom to walk naked and sleep in hostel J.
It has been two years since this happened and I am a completely different person. Maybe I should say I have transformed but my friend Kinyua will argue that it is not transformation. I am sure he will say its degradation. That’s why I won’t seek his opinion on this. He will also start teaching me how to pronounce transformation and degradation, a class I skipped in primary school when our English teacher decided that the cane was more audible than his mouth.
I am sure those villagers who prayed for me would faint if they saw what I have become nowadays. My father will opt to go stay in Mars if he hears that my hostel is next to hostel J and that pirating is a just but a rule which can be broken any time. My mum will have a heart attack in the event that she discovers that in my second year, I stayed in the multi-purpose hostel H, where kids are manufactured. I am told it’s the only hostel with named floors, the maternity floor and the chips café floor among others. I wonder why they don’t name them after people like me.
I won’t invite the villagers to my graduation. Although I am sure they won’t understand the difference between a first class and a second class lower division, I don’t want to take chances. Why should I risk? Who knows, maybe someone has schooled them on the same!
I also don’t want them see how my lady friends wear torn or see-but-don’t-touch clothes. They would turn my graduation ceremony into a prayer session with some cursing the day they hired vans to escort me here. They would even decide that I should abandon the degree and go back to the village to teach the kids how to escape night runners and how to read books but not pass so as never to step foot in the university. But I think I have to visit them before my graduation, I surely will.
The writer is a 3rd Year journalism student and the current managing editor of The 3rd Eye.
When the people of my village congregated to offer prayers for me before coming to the university two years ago, they never visualized what they were subjecting their ‘very holy’ and ‘innocent' kid to. One of them even had the guts to tell me, “You will sure love where you are going, huko kuna kila kitu enda usome uje utufunze sisi”.
I can’t blame him for one reason: despite being the headmaster of our village school, the farthest he had travelled was to our neighbouring village about three kilometres away. He had gone to find a wife for me, their ‘innocent’ boy who had never spoken to a lady, leave alone touched them. They offered to hire vans to ferry those willing to escort me to school, a school where after crachu-eting, I would be able to solve all problems in the village, including treating cattle and advising youths.
These are the same youths who had decided to venture into business and do those things that are done by their parents. (Nowadays I am told it’s barter trade where you get a laptop after giving birth). I wished they could amass the money used to hire those vans and give it to me. The 'mama mbogas' of Moi High School would have known who I am. What was the essence of a whole village travelling to this school? Kwani nasomea degree tatu?
All this was in spite of the fact that I wasn’t the only one in university from that village. The others though, after graduating had decided that they would become heroes in drinking chang’aa. That’s the reason why the whole village had to ask The Almighty not to let me do the same. To them, I would be a role model to the young who had the ambitions of studying in this university, a place where all freedom is guaranteed, even the freedom to walk naked and sleep in hostel J.
It has been two years since this happened and I am a completely different person. Maybe I should say I have transformed but my friend Kinyua will argue that it is not transformation. I am sure he will say its degradation. That’s why I won’t seek his opinion on this. He will also start teaching me how to pronounce transformation and degradation, a class I skipped in primary school when our English teacher decided that the cane was more audible than his mouth.
I am sure those villagers who prayed for me would faint if they saw what I have become nowadays. My father will opt to go stay in Mars if he hears that my hostel is next to hostel J and that pirating is a just but a rule which can be broken any time. My mum will have a heart attack in the event that she discovers that in my second year, I stayed in the multi-purpose hostel H, where kids are manufactured. I am told it’s the only hostel with named floors, the maternity floor and the chips café floor among others. I wonder why they don’t name them after people like me.
I won’t invite the villagers to my graduation. Although I am sure they won’t understand the difference between a first class and a second class lower division, I don’t want to take chances. Why should I risk? Who knows, maybe someone has schooled them on the same!
I also don’t want them see how my lady friends wear torn or see-but-don’t-touch clothes. They would turn my graduation ceremony into a prayer session with some cursing the day they hired vans to escort me here. They would even decide that I should abandon the degree and go back to the village to teach the kids how to escape night runners and how to read books but not pass so as never to step foot in the university. But I think I have to visit them before my graduation, I surely will.
The writer is a 3rd Year journalism student and the current managing editor of The 3rd Eye.
ON YOUR CHRONICLE
By Purity Museo
Eliaph L. Chemai is a lecturer in the School of Human Resource Development in the Department of Communication Studies. Born in 1940 in a well-off family, he did not understand the menace of sleeping hungry. The turning point in his life was when his parents passed away while he was eight years old. He then schooled with the help of the church, community and bursaries from local authorities.
He went to Kapsabet High school and later joined Kenyatta College (now K.U.) and did a teaching course called SI which is equivalent to a diploma in English-Literature and Kiswahili today. He taught in three high schools after which he got a scholarship to the University of Wales in the UK for two years where he acquired his first degree.
He came back to Kenya and taught in two more high schools which included his former school Kapsabet for seven years. He then went back to the UK for his masters at St Marks College. During that time, Kenyan universities and colleges were enrolling the first batch of the 8-4-4 education system. He was among those identified by the British Council Union to teach university students at that time. He therefore became a pioneer lecturer in teaching communication skills in 1990. The Communication Department was established and that’s how he ended up in Moi University.
Despite all he went through, he did not give up. He got educated even as an orphan. Many students in this institution have the same story. Others have the worst experiences in life. Many have given up in life because they see no light ahead. For this reason, they have gone to an extent of destroying their bodies.
They engage themselves into vices such as drug abuse and prostitution. Many of us tend to condemn them and hate their company. It is true that some youths do it out of peer pressure. This is not the case to everyone.
One evening, Davis (not his real name) was staggering hopelessly in the streets of Moi University while drunk. I was curious to know what the problem was. He told me that he did not want to have a sober mind since he hated to remember that he was then an orphan. Both his parents had died in a car crash.
There is a story behind every face. People have different experiences in life. Some are orphans while others come from poor backgrounds. Many have tried to escape their problems by involving themselves in antisocial behaviour. Do not escape your problems. If you made it this far and did not collapse then, you will make it. Let not any challenges put you off from achieving your goal.
Drinking and smoking do not help. Taking pity on oneself does not solve any problem. Plan with what you have without having to borrow and avoid unnecessary spending. For those fully stranded, take a step and talk to people. In Moi University – Main Campus, every school has a group of counsellors that can be approached.
Eliaph L. Chemai is a lecturer in the School of Human Resource Development in the Department of Communication Studies. Born in 1940 in a well-off family, he did not understand the menace of sleeping hungry. The turning point in his life was when his parents passed away while he was eight years old. He then schooled with the help of the church, community and bursaries from local authorities.
He went to Kapsabet High school and later joined Kenyatta College (now K.U.) and did a teaching course called SI which is equivalent to a diploma in English-Literature and Kiswahili today. He taught in three high schools after which he got a scholarship to the University of Wales in the UK for two years where he acquired his first degree.
He came back to Kenya and taught in two more high schools which included his former school Kapsabet for seven years. He then went back to the UK for his masters at St Marks College. During that time, Kenyan universities and colleges were enrolling the first batch of the 8-4-4 education system. He was among those identified by the British Council Union to teach university students at that time. He therefore became a pioneer lecturer in teaching communication skills in 1990. The Communication Department was established and that’s how he ended up in Moi University.
Despite all he went through, he did not give up. He got educated even as an orphan. Many students in this institution have the same story. Others have the worst experiences in life. Many have given up in life because they see no light ahead. For this reason, they have gone to an extent of destroying their bodies.
They engage themselves into vices such as drug abuse and prostitution. Many of us tend to condemn them and hate their company. It is true that some youths do it out of peer pressure. This is not the case to everyone.
One evening, Davis (not his real name) was staggering hopelessly in the streets of Moi University while drunk. I was curious to know what the problem was. He told me that he did not want to have a sober mind since he hated to remember that he was then an orphan. Both his parents had died in a car crash.
There is a story behind every face. People have different experiences in life. Some are orphans while others come from poor backgrounds. Many have tried to escape their problems by involving themselves in antisocial behaviour. Do not escape your problems. If you made it this far and did not collapse then, you will make it. Let not any challenges put you off from achieving your goal.
Drinking and smoking do not help. Taking pity on oneself does not solve any problem. Plan with what you have without having to borrow and avoid unnecessary spending. For those fully stranded, take a step and talk to people. In Moi University – Main Campus, every school has a group of counsellors that can be approached.
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