By Benedict Wachira: Magoha must go…………….my experiences.

Today, Police are all over the University. The administration police have surrounded Kikuyu campus. The GSU are baying for innocent students’ blood, across the Kabetes. A combination of anti-riot, AP, and GSU police have cordoned off the statehouse road, and all they are waiting for is the whistle, the whistle to allow then to maim, maim male students. The whistle that allows them to rape, rape female students. And the whistle that will allow them to kill, kill anybody who runs away from them. The media, the Kenyan media, has decided to give the situation of national importance a total black out, or give a one sided story, on the turn of events. The media is trying to make this issue of national importance, to look like a simple politico-goonship story. The media wants to make the students look like barbarians, and that all they want is to stone cars and cause disruptions. The media is part of the problem. It all began in 2006. April, 2006. A group of former expelled students came to the University, they came as “revolutionaries” who had been kicked out because of fighting for students rights. They came and made promises, they came and excited students, they came and played with students’ emotions, but all they wanted to do was to fuck the students up. Unknown to the University Comrades, Magoha had made a deal with these returned expellees, a deal to help him steal money, a deal to help him stay on his seat for longer, and a deal, to feed them with the cramps that fell. In 2006, April, 2006, Magoha and his accomplices succeeded very well, and took almost all the executive posts. Come 2007, May, 4th, 2007, Magoha wanted more, he wanted a tribally balanced SONU. He wanted arse-lickers, who could do whatever he wanted. And he had prepared well for it. Very well indeed. In the course of 2006, he instigated for the changing of the SONU constitution, so that the outgoing office, would serve as the incoming electoral commission, this he did by: And I quote him “massaging the backs of the then student leaders.” Bribing through stealing from the students’ fund no longer had the common name of corruption, no, it now had been given a new name: Massage. Come May 4th, 2007 Susan Chege, won the chairperson’s seat with a landslide majority. But Magoha could not allow that. He wanted the chairperson’s seat to go to a person who understood how “The system works,” not a novice whom he could not trust. Furthermore, he wanted a tribally balanced SONU, and given that there was no Luo vying for the SecGen’s post, he had to get a Luo for the chairman’s post. This was against the wish of the majority of Luo students, who didn’t like Adinda, Magoha’s candidate, due to his poor performance as a sports secretary the previous year. Those who had tried to stop the rigging were instead beaten up by the riggers, and the University security. Not only was Adinda, a person who had been booed and dismissed all through his campaigns given the seat, but so was a whole lot of others students vying for other seats. We mobilized students to oppose those fake results and tension was all over the university. Even two former student leaders, the late Oulu GPO and Fwamba NC, could not just sit aside and watch, they came to our aid. The University students wanted to take to the streets, but we told them to wait. To wait until we tried out the other channels. We went to all the offices that one could think of, from the ministry of justice, to the ministry of education, from well known lawyers, to river road lawyers, we did letters to the University Council and we finally met the VC himself. All he did was plead with us, not to cause chaos in the University. He instead blamed the constitution. But what he seemingly could not remember was that HIS constitution (new) was never passed by an AGM, and it was thus ILLEGAL. All we wanted was a repeat election of the elections, with neutral electoral commissioners. The talks failed and we settled for our last option: Leading the students to the streets with two agenda only. 1. Magoha must go. 2. Yote yawezekana bila SONU. It was the only option that we had been left with, everybody else, the government, the Council, the Judiciary had given us a blind ear. Oblivious to some of us, Magoha had already begun clandestine talks with some of the people we were together with, and by the date of the demo, only three people had remained. Demoralized and disoriented. How did this happen? Was the only question in our minds. Magoha had proved that he was not only a master tribalist, but a master in the world of bribing. Some of the fellows had been given money, lots of money, others had been given imaginary posts, and others were merely threatened. (Here I can’t help but remember how I had a very progressive meeting with one Mr.Kibore, on how he would mobilize guys from Upper Kabete, drop with them in Chiromo, and head on to main campus. then 20minutes later, I meet Dann Mwangi, who shows me an sms from Kibore, who was already campaigning for the speaker’s post! A post that he had been assured of by Magoha himself!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,of which needless to say, he never got. ) *Interestingly, the same rigging tactics that were used by Magoha’s men, were the same rigging tactics that Kibaki used in the presidential elections later that year (lack of ballot papers in some areas, changing of results at the summation halls, the use of security persons to protect the riggmasters etc etc) But this was just the beginning of of Magoha’s successes. That year, millions of shillings were stolen, by the SONU leaders in conjunction with Magoha’s administration. By the way, the SONU leaders had given the stealing a nicer name: Jackpotting. Adinda had no decency whatsoever. His lowest point being when he led his goons to beat and maim around 60 Biomedical students, who had sought the University’s intervention for the recognition of their degree, by the Kenya Biomedics registration Board. Instead of the goons, who had used metal pipes and whips to beat up the peaceful and innocent young women and men from Upper Kabete being suspended and facing disciplinary action, it was the victims who were suspended, and some even expelled from the university. It was hence quite clear, who was behind all this. After a year of stealing, stealing and more stealing the elections were here again. This time round, I decided that I was not going to vie for the Secretary General’s post, but not under the conditions that were there. Comrade Amuke and I (and later joined by Onchari) formed the reformist movement. And our call was >>no reforms no elections<>No reforms no elections/SONU must go campaign<>No reforms, no elections/SONU must go