Death of meaningful student activism

University students go on strike every year. Their problems usually range from insecurity to examination -fee issues. In nearly all cases, when such problems emerge, comrades come out in large numbers and demonstrate along the streets. These demonstration start peacefully but turn out to be riots and looting. They picket shops around and within the university. They usually shout for so long that when journalists arrive, they are already tired. They then end up presenting their problems in a wrong, unclear way such that they are despised. With this, their problems hardly get addressed.

The only thing the university administration does is call for the police help, who their presence only angers comrades. After hours of throwing stones at the police, they become silent and assume that it never happened. One interesting thing about the 'comrade’s power!' they usually shout while demonstrating is that the power lies only in the chanting, throwing stones at the police and looting. Nothing more. They express their power at the wrong point.

When early this year, a female student at Moi University was raped and murdered on a Saturday night, the students came out the following day angry and demanding to know whoever might had done such an inhuman act. The students then boycotted lectures for two consecutive days. For the three days they demonstrated, the order of the day became waking up, converging at the students centre and shouting while walking the highways till around three o’clock.

When comrades get tired and the demonstration is called off, the students who are believed to have incited comrades are summoned by the university disciplinary committee and judgment passed on them. At this point, no one is ready to call comrades and convince them not to allow their colleagues to be suspended. Those who addressed comrades before the demonstration began suffer the burden of all the comrades. They have nothing to say in their defense.

Comrades are nowhere to be seen with the 'comrade’s power!' shouts. The very comrades you tried fighting for cannot ever remember you. They do not know if you exist. They are busy with their daily chores as if nothing ever happened. When the student who led the demonstration is suspended from the university, he or she packs and goes home alone with not even a single comrade to bid them goodbye. That's when you realize that comrade’s power does not exist or is very weak indeed.

You have to go home and if very lucky enough, come back after the very comrades you tried fighting for have graduated. Unlucky ones usually receive indefinite suspension notices pending appearance before the university disciplinary committee. University students should use alternative and formal ways to get their problems addressed. Demonstrations only see students suspended from the university. After the suspension nobody dares blow grammar at the administration easily. This is why university administration do not take students’ problems seriously. How do you expect your problem to be addressed when already you've looted shops around and have destroyed university property? Comrade’s power do not exist.