FEATURE STORIES

The venom of tribalism in Universities and institutions of higher learning

PHOTO; TRIBAL CHAOS IN MOI UNIVERSITY

 

Universties and colleges are not spared.The learned have become worse than the uneducated.Tribalism is something we talk about, it is something everyone acknowledge is a bad thing but the tragedy and the irony at once is that even those who do not participate in spreading it directly accommodate it.
Tribalism in institutions of learning has risen to a degree of hotness that of not controlled will lead to eruption of fire.
Currently the Vice Chancellor of a university must come from the tribe where the university is located. People will fight that the vice chancellor of Moi university must be a kalenjin, Kisii university must be a kisii, Kenyatta university's VC must be agikuyu and even the principal of odero okang'o must be a luo.
The  moment a VC is chosen to lead a university away from his tribe, the local people protest wanting their own.It has become venomous that even students in universities demand that their union leaders be elected from their own tribe.

Union elections have turned tribal. It has happened in maseno, it has happened in Moi , it has happened in masinde Muriro university and the worst of them in Chuka university. Even the workers in universities are not spared if u are in Moi university and you speak kalenjin then you will be served first and properly than anyone else. If you are in kisii university and you speak in ekegusii then you seem better placed to get services easily. Kenyatta university Nairobi university are not spared.However tribalism in universities has mostly taken roots in institutions away from towns.

University students who are thought to have been reformed by the education system are not better than village monkeys in this issue of tribalism. Tribalism has recently been the recipe for university strikes. If not controlled tribalism cause eruption of fire that will spread from institutions to the whole country. If you doubt this.. remember the assassination of Arch duke France Ferdinand by a Serbian student. It lead to war that spread from Sarajevo to the entire world.
It is shame that a university student who is learned and widely travelled than the parents still engage in the acts of tribalism. It indicates that education has not transformed us.You say I can't marry from this or that tribe because of tribal reasons attached.