Hidden hands behind varsity riots. Three weeks ago, University of Nairobi students took to the streets to protest a fee increment that never was. It has since emerged that there could have been a hidden political agenda to it, and one not unrelated to intended protest demonstrations announced by the opposition Cord. An intriguing twist to the students riots was the hyped coverage accorded the news by major western media outlets, specifically the influential New York Times, CNN and the BBC. It did not escape notice that on the same day university students staged a riot in Nairobi, a bomb planted by the Nigerian terror gang, Boko Haram, killed 100 people and injured many others. Yet it is the Kenyan riots that ended up making banner headlines in the western media. Details have now emerged that there was a hidden agenda in the students riots but which were camouflaged as protest against alleged intended fee increment at public universities. Investigations by The People Saturday indicate substantive amounts of money hand changed hands to ensure the students riots took place under all circumstances. Conservative estimates say upwards of Sh10 million was at the disposal of student’s leadership at the public universities to make sure students poured into the streets, even after the government had made it clear there would be no increase in fees at public universities until wider consultations were held with all stake-holders including student leadership. We have learnt that days to the staging of the riots, a series of night meetings between student leadership and three Cord politicians agreed that the university leadership ignore the assurance from the government and proceed with the street protests as planned. Sources now disclose that the students riots were meant to be part of the build-up to last Saturday home-coming welcome rally for Cord leader, Raila Odinga. Indeed, the chairman of the Students Organisation of the Nairobi University (SONU), Babu Owino, a card-carrying ODM member, was in the organising committee of Raila’s home-coming rally. At the same time it has emerged that the supposed “national dialogue” Cord is agitating for could be brainchild of some western nations, more so after word leaked that the UNDP had offered to fund it. UNDP is largely funded and controlled by western nations. Political observers have been quick to see the lavish publicity given to students riots in the western media as part of the curtain raiser to justify the “national dialogue” in Kenya. Most US mass circulation newspapers and TV stations covered the protests. They included USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and CNN. In Britain, the BBC ensured the Nairobi riots were given major slot in it’s most popular on-line channel. The extravagant coverage in the international media focused on a picture where riot police are confronting a female student. The twist here is that Kenya is a police state where armed police spare not unarmed females! At the same time, political pundits see a connection between calls for a “national dialogue” and what looks like deliberate sabotage of the Kenyan economy by the western countries. Quickly on the heels of the travel advisories issued by a section of the West and subsequent evacuation of British tourists from Kenya, the European Community has now announced strident trade rules that may adversely affect another mainstay of Kenya’s economy – the horticulture sector. Observers now see a wider scheme to bleed the country’s economy to a point that it brings the kind of social upheaval that precedes civil revolt and overthrow of governments. Back to the university riots, the sequence of events the day before, and the morning they took place, indicates the motive of the protests was anything else but the alleged fee increase. On the morning of the protests, local newspapers ran a press statement from the Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi clarifying that there would be no fee increase at public universities. Indeed, Kaimenyi had issued the press statement after a three hour closed door meeting with student leadership from all public universities under the umbrella of their organisation, the National University Students Association (NUSA). In the meeting, Kaimenyi made it clear that the government did not have any intention of raising tuition fees, and that if it were to do so, there would be consultations where students would be invited. The Education CS was also emphatic that his ministry had no powers to increase fees at the public universities and that such powers were vested in respective councils of concerned univer
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 18:12:23 +0000
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