Intellectual opposites in politics and what it means for 2017 poll

It is argued that university dons and academics have taken a back seat in crucial national discourses. Their role as public intellectuals, it is thought, has now been filled by the phalanx of political analysts, activists and the occasional hecklers.

Also, it is thought that latter day intellectuals have equally been co-opted into the murky world of our ethnicised politics and that their intervention is nothing more than polemic paraded as intellectual reflection. We think that if Kenyan intellectuals’ participation is unvoiced at moments such as this, it is a dereliction of their vocation.