![Prof. Joseph Nyasani](https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/sdemedia/sdeimages/pulse/profbooks61214.jpg)
Governor Sir Evelyn Baring turned on his chair and tapped his foot as pupils entertained him during a state visit to Kisii in October 1952.
Stung by growing pan-Africanism through Mau Mau, a collapsing divide-and-rule strategy and imminent split within the British colonial community, Governor Baring was not at his best.
“Dramatic things were to follow. The governor returned to Nairobi and declared a state of emergency that very week,” recalls Prof Joseph Nyasani, who was part of the dancers that entertained the governor that Monday afternoon.
“He had come to launch Gesonso Tea Factory 2km from Suneka Airstrip where his plane landed, but his real mission was to isolate the Gusii from the Kikuyus to stem what he had foreseen,” Nyasani adds a rider, refereeing to the fact the British wanted to rally the rest of Kenya against the Mau Mau movement.
Now a towering academician, he believes these early experiences had an impact on his beliefs and ideals. Today, the 1936 born Philosophy professor is an inspiration through decades of writing, academic and media work.
Nyasani, who broke a 300-year record by writing his dissertation in Latin while doing his doctorate in Germany in 1963, says he was destined to be a Catholic priest but changed career paths to pursue academics.
At his Westlands home in Nairobi, his study room is awash with pictures of his heyday at the Voice of Kenya (now Kenya Broadcasting Corporation), his university days in Germany and moments captured with different powerful personalities.
So inspired was he that by last year, the academic giant had 40 titles to his name. The University of Nairobi don is penning his latest book and says he is not about to call it a day anytime soon.
He is author of several books in philosophy especially in the area of metaphysics, logic, cosmology and legal Philosophy.
His recent publications include Philosophy of Development, Life and Death in Africa, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophical Focus on Thought Systems in Development, Legal philosophy, British Massacre of Gusii Freedom Defenders and Metaphysics of the Cosmos and Related Recurrent Issues of Metaphysics.
“More books are on the way. This is the time I feel I have time for everything. And I feel that my biggest achievement in life is teaching other people,” Nyasani told The Standard on Saturday.
“This one here is titled The Coffee Bonanza. I wrote this in 1978 together with my friend Prof Akong’o Oyugi, detailing accounts of how people engaged in all manner of things to trade in coffee in Chepkube.
We are yet to publish it,” he says, carrying a voluminous manuscript.
His determination is overwhelming. He says having survived a gun attack outside his home 1994 in which a bullet fired above his eye when through his skull, his passion to teach others and make a difference in society can only rise high and higher.
Nyasani has a rich history. After his Cambridge Secondary Education in 1957 at a seminary in Kakamega, he was picked by Catholic bishop Fredrick Holl to be part of 20 Kenyan students who went to study for priesthood in Kampala, Uganda in 1958.
The following year, he would be the only student from the team selected to further his education in Rome, Italy, where he studied Latin, literature, English and history.
His academic papers include an Arts degree from Urbaniana University in Rome (1963), a diploma in social ethics from Woodstock, Oxford in 1964.
He also did law at New York University, School of Law in 1972 before PhD at the University Of Cologne, Germany, in 1969.
Prof Nyasani, who is married with children, worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York as Political Affairs Officer in the Department of Political and Security Council Affairs in 1971 before becoming an associate Professor at the City University of New York in 1973.
He is also a seasoned journalist spanning 35 years, having served as a reporter and announcer with the Voice of Germany (now DW) in Cologne and Voice of Kenya and later KBC. The don is also a holder of an International Press Card.
He has been at the University of Nairobi since 1970. He was also first chairman of Council of the Kisii University from 2008 to 2013.
Awards and fellowships he won include the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship and DAAD foundation scholarship between 1987 and 1992.