The evolution of youth politics (student politics) in Kenya since independence has more often than not served to highlight various shortcomings, loopholes and aberrations especially within the economic and political system of the day. Being the highest of all institutions of learning, universities contain the cream of knowledge, intellectual awareness and youth politics in any society.
In Kenya, universities have through youth politics seen the rise of now eminent politicians and policy makers like Mwangi Kiunjuri, James Orengo, Wafula Buke, and lawyer PLO Lumumba amongst many others some of who went through political persecution during the dark political era .The cradle of oppositionist attitudes, fundamentalist ideologies and radicalism are always the higher institutions of learning, the universities.
Most intellectuals would freely admit that the oppressive policies of the former regime made Kenya’s student politics a hot bed of well orchestrated opposition versus ruling party antagonistic clamor for control of the student masses through their unions. These maneuvers unfortunately witnessed several running street battles between students and the law enforcement agencies of the day. Many students died in the limbo of the agitation for change. The most affected were the students at the University of Nairobi.
Currently, university students have become a pale shadow of what is expected of them. Most of the problems dogging them are tumors of their own creation. As intellectual trendsetters, its quite appalling that tribalism, a national stigma, festers among most university students in spite of the academic aura ruling their lecture halls and halls of residence. This is especially more evident during students’ union elections where most leaders may be elected depending on tribal numbers within the campuses rather than leadership qualities. The ethnic equations thus come into play here.
It is therefore quite serious that most universities face tribally iced strife rather than administration problems. This has seen some students fighting some administrators because of their ethnic orientation resulting into adverse economic and social damages, to the chagrin of tribal cabals.
Other cancerous problems such as drug abuse, crime, and prostitution/sexual immorality have continued to create academic fog and mist among the university student fraternity. Many university students have, in effect, become a sickly lot of academic zombies, roaming the market places of intellect with much inconsequential fuss, arrogance and impractical drivel. Gone are the days when they were the elite of the society. While some keen observers trace the problem to poverty and the general breakdown of societal norms, it is worth noting that there can never be any excuse for betraying the trust bestowed upon them by the society. With the prevalent student riots and unrest, one wonders whether this is the trend that the students want to leave for their offsprings and offsprings’ offsprings. This question is timely and applicable to all youth regardless of their academic ladder.
Unwarranted and as avoidable as they are, the riots set precedence for the future generations, a skewed legacy. As one Ndichu Gitau noted (“Daily Nation Kenya” May 17th 2003), the students should know that “as always our needs are certainly aroused by the conditions in our environment” and therefore “no university administration or government on earth can save them from the violence of their own emotions”.
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