How students led protest for the second liberation Updated Tuesday, December 3rd 2013 at 18:54 GMT +3 0 inShare The University of Nairobi would come to symbolise resistance to dictatorship and became part of the movement for democratic space and an end to tyranny. However, it was the assassination of Nyandarua North MP JM Kariuki in 1975 that saw radicalism in universities take a new turn. Kariuki was idolised for his defence of the poor and criticism of Government. Students took to the streets to demonstrate. There were claims that General Service Unit officers sent to quell the riots raped female students. Students continued to commemorate JM’s murder every March 2 in subsequent years and continued to clash with police. “A generation of elites was being radicalised,” writes Charles Hornsby in Kenya: A History since Independence. Theirs became a story of honour, bravery, betrayal, murder , protest, and triumph. Two decades later, one student leader was brutally murdered by suspected state agents. Among those who eulogised Kariuki at his burial was Wanyiri Kihoro, then a student whose criticism of Government would later see him detained. Kihoro would later be arrested and held against the law for 73 hours before being hauled to court. While in confinement, he was held alone, tortured, denied food and held in a waterlogged cell before being charged with delivering anti-government speeches in London as well as publishing seditious materials. He was also accused of belonging to the Mwakenya movement before being sent to prison for nearly three years. JM’s murder shocked the country. “When he was murdered, obviously there was shock, a serious shock in the society as a whole and in the university. He was treated like a piece of meat and left to rot and be eaten by animals,” Shadrack Gutto, a lecturer at the university, would later tell an interviewer. Inspired by socialist ideologies, lecturers at the university would soon suck students into the fight for human rights and democracy. The government responded with a heavy hand. Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who chaired University of Nairobi’s literature department, was detained in 1978 for his play, Ngaahika Ndeenda. A series of ominous events followed in 1979 and 1980, as the Government banned the Student’s Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu) and the Academic Staff Union. The institution was also closed as more protests ensued, including those demanding that wa Thiong’o be reinstated. Assassination of scholar GO TO PAGE « Prev 1 2 3 4 Next » 1 inShare Next Story » December 13 declared a public holiday Read More... M
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 06:03:54 +0000
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