How students bounced back after varsity suspension

Beyond academic pursuits, institutions of higher learning are the incubators of dreams and aspirations, courtships and family — and a launching pad for political careers through student leadership.

The pursuit to lead “comrades” has, however, over the years either built the profiles of these young Kenyans or caused distress after suspension or expulsion.

Whether penalised for leading a great cause or just youthful mischief, suspension or expulsion from the university hits differently once a student retreats to their solitude.

Once the disciplinary council hands down 1,000 academic days of hold-up or worse, the “comrade’s power” ceases to protect you.

You will stand exposed to the realities of loneliness, disdainful rebel tag, stalled career, an underprivileged background for some and the ticking life clock, which some students may never recover from.

It was baptism by fire for Vanice Morwabe, an artless village girl from Kisii who landed at Kenyatta University courtesy of contributions from her church and villagers, when she was suspended barely three months after joining the institution in March, 2009.

She went into depression for two months.

“Suspension then attracted stigma. I was depressed for two months, and didn't know where to start from or how to spend the two years at home,” Vanice recalled.

She reckoned that the news would be even worse for the parents, so she lied to protect them, saying she was home because she had been transferred to a better university.

Suspended indefinitely

“My parents didn’t go to school. My background was so poor that we didn’t have a decent house nor clothes. My home is not detectable on Google maps, yet the first born daughter who was a symbol of hope was home just two months after reporting on campus,” Vanice narrated.

With that background, it would only make sense that she joined the fight against KU administration’s bid to increase school fees by Sh4,000. For her, it meant the school would gobble up the entire Sh18,000 awarded by the government and she would have nothing to eat nor wardrobe change.

“After a major students’ protest, the entire leadership was sent packing. Some were expelled and others suspended for a varied number of years, depending on what they believed was the extent of individual participation,” Vanice recalls.

She desperately wanted to restore her family’s hope by a mere lie that she had found a better college. As destiny would have it, a silver lining appeared when a relative offered to pay her fees at Strathmore University.

She changed her course from economics and pursued Information Technology (IT) and Certified Public Accounts on the side, alongside a job.

Vanice would later return to complete the initial course at KU as a self-sponsored student and back to be the beacon of hope she was meant to be in her village.

Mr Nyambega Gisesa was a casualty of the same unrest at KU in 2009. He was suspended indefinitely for publishing information in a newspaper in connection with the strike and commenting on student issues in the press without the authority of the vice-chancellor.

“I aired my displeasure on how KU administration was handling student issues,” Gisesa told Nation.

In a disciplinary process he believes was devoid of fairness, he was slapped with an indefinite suspension without being accorded a right to be heard. The arbitrary decision sparked a new wave of demonstrations that saw him face a Senate disciplinary committee that subsequently gave him two years in the cold.

Expelled from universities

“I ended up going back to KU in 2014, five years later. It took me a whole nine years to complete a four-year degree course. I had all those dreams of having a PhD at 30 but as a result of the suspension, I saw them fade away,” he said.

His mother offered him the support he much needed. 

“I was able to cope up since I got a writing job with the Nation. This kept me very busy. I won over 60 per cent of my journalism awards while I was serving my suspension from university,” Gisesa noted.

Besides finalising his degree in economics and finance, his suspension encouraged him to do law at the University of Nairobi.

“I want to fight for the rights of others,” Gisesa stated.

Then there’s Fikirini Jacobs, famed as the recent face of student resistance for being expelled from two universities in two years.

In 2017, Jacob was suspended from Maasai Mara University by word of mouth on suspicion of inciting students to strike over Sh5,000 fee hike, a move that caused his life trajectory a great turbulence that he’s still struggling to stabilise to date.

“I would have graduated, but I am now still a student. I feel my dreams have been derailed. The only consolation, I appealed to my conscience that everything happens for a reason, and that even though it’s delayed, it’s not denied,” he told Nation in a phone interview.

While his peers are working or job-hunting, Jacob had to start a new course altogether at Pwani University, where he has a second chance after yet another expulsion. He is now a final year student pursuing a Bachelor of Art in philosophy with political science, having abandoned a teaching course in Kiwahili and religion.

Deeply revolutionary

Like Vanice, Jacob comes from an underprivileged background in Kilifi County, a reality that gives him the oomph to defend fairness at any cost. He believes he’s a genuine soul, caught up in a web of unjust societal systems.

The firebrand youth endeared himself to the students at Maasai Mara and they elected him their vice-president without him spending a penny. Being students’ project, however, often portends danger since his loyalty rubbed the school administration wrongly. The rest, as they say, is a horrific history for the ambitious youngster.

The same script played out at Pwani University where he became the students’ president. Enough chairs for students, cutlery at the cafeteria, stocking the dispensary, security and fair policy on re-sitting exams were among his 13 talking points. When diplomacy failed and students were impatient with him, he joined them in the “street language”. Another history.

Does he regret it? He responds to the contrary.

“I am deeply revolutionary,” he said. “That the institution managed to address the 13 issues I had been championing is a good sign that I was doing the right thing hence, I did not deserve what I got. With time I have learnt to let the pain drain out of my heart.”

Jacob now has his eyes trained on the Kilifi senatorial seat come 2022. He feels the compulsion to help other underprivileged children to access education like he did. Similarly, George Sum was suspended from Baraton University after being suspected of participating in a students’ strike. He was barred from entering the university under any circumstances for a year.

“When the strike occurred, my colleagues and I faced the disciplinary committee and what followed was suspension,” Mr Sum recalled.

Unlike others who went into depression as a result, he had taken it in stride and went full swing into farming potatoes and tomatoes in his home in Nandi County from which he made a tidy sum. He coped well until he returned to campus only to find that his girlfriend, whom he could not see during much of that time, had moved on.

Hardened their resolve

“I remember the painful part of the suspension was when I returned to find my girlfriend having moved on and was now dating a Zimbabwean guy. I know it may sound funny now, but she was a potential life partner. This was the time before mobile phones and so out of sight, also meant out of mind. Something significant changed in my life when that happened,” he said laughing.

The comrades agree that suspension has a way of changing one’s view about life and can either make one retreat or emboldened. 

Despite the pain, dreams down the drain and some silver lining, the denominator for them is that the experience hardened their resolve to fight for what is right.

The ruthless system of suspension applied over the years as a disciplinary measure has been challenged as causing more harm than good to the wellbeing of students and breeding rebellion.

Lawyer Miguna Miguna, Kericho senator Aaron Cheruiyot, and former Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto are among those who were suspended in their heydays as student leaders from various universities.

Is there a better way of dealing with students’ unrest?

“If university management listens to the grievances of students, such issues (unrests) can be avoided. Some of these arbitrary decisions by disciplinary sittings have ruined the careers of so many students,” said Gisesa.

Vanice agrees: “The systems have conditioned in such a way that ‘street language’ is the best language understood by the government, we inherited this from other generations. But it doesn’t have to get there if learning institutions set up workable mechanisms of addressing student issues.”

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