Students foil attempt to set Kenyan campus hostel ablaze

Students of Rongo University College in Migori County take photos of their residence hall which was burnt by suspected arson fire. No one was injured in the Monday 23/03/2015 morning fire that caused damage of unknown value. Photo: Stanley Ongwae/PHOTO  ;   COURTESY

Migori: Students believed to be against the Rongo University College poll results are suspected to have tried to set on fire a residential hall. The students were electing the college's students' council chairman.

The yesterday morning incident caused panic at the institution, which is a constituent college of Moi University.

Students who witnessed the incident said they saw smoke billowing from the first room of the hostel, prompting them to raise the alarm.

"We were heading to class at around 8am when we saw smoke coming from the hostel. We managed to put it out before it could spread to other rooms within the hall," said Jeremy Okuthe, one of the students.

The college's principal, Samuel Gudu, said there were no casualties in the unfortunate incident. However, property of unknown value was destroyed.

Prof Gudu said there has been a lot of tension in the college since Friday after elections of the students' council were concluded.

He said police have been camping in the institution since Friday after intelligence reports indicated chaos was bound to happen following the protests that ensued thereafter.

Two rival camps for the chairmanship had engaged each other in bitter campaigns before the elections. One group was in support of Paul Onyango, who eventually won, and the other was for Ali Mafudhi.

"We are fully convinced that this is as a result of politics but police are investigating the occurrence and we will get into the bottom of it after a very short period of time so that we can take appropriate action," said Gudu.

According to the principal, the loser of the elections had protested the outcome and wanted to appeal the process. His supporters are believed to be behind the plan to raze the college.

"We were informed of possible destruction of college property, something that made us to engage the police since Friday," said Gudu.

Mr Mafudhi was later arrested and released on cash bail after he was suspected to be among those behind the incident.

"So far we have instituted investigations and within the next two days, we shall have a report," said Rongo OCPD Thomas Ngeiwa.