Current crisis at UoN has its roots in decades of political interference

Acting University of Nairobi VC Stephen Kiama during a student orientation exercise last month. (File, Standard).

The University of Nairobi, Kenya’s oldest institution of higher learning, is steeped in a crisis after the appointment of a new vice-chancellor was revoked. The university council has also been disbanded.

Far from being unusual, however, the crisis falls within an established pattern of government intervention in universities going back decades.