I would first like to take this golden opportunity to
congratulate one Paul Ongili Owino alias Babu Owino, also known as “Ja-Runda”
to some students, for winning the SONU presidency race, one Jim Akach for
earning the Secretary General seat, and the entire lot of those who made it to
clinch various SONU seats. Indeed, it was a highly coveted battle, a tough and
weary tussle, but you still fought a good fight! You pulled the bull by its
horns and meddled with it’s delicate genitalia, yet, or stoically so, you still
survived the ordeal and emerged out victorious. Kudos. Weeks down since your
inauguration, I believe you are settling and catching up with how to balance
your academics and your leadership responsibilities.
So far, you have started on a very good knot. All the way
from suspending of the on-start of end of semester exams to bailing out of the
arrested students. Such an aplomb! However, Your Chairmanship, Don Babu Owino,
SONU serves as a mirror to the rest of the of the Kenyan Student Unions. Its
constitutional jurisdiction might be to basically serve the students of The
University of Nairobi, though, it also has a very high bargaining power when it
comes to matters of national interests. It is on these grounds that the time to
resurrect Kenya Universities Students Association (KUSA) has dawned. There is
need for a common platform for all university students in Kenya to air their
common grievances. This platform is to em-broaden the space for intellectual
discourses, social justices, recreational interests, exchange programs among
many more.
This idea had been tried out initially, though it lost it’s
glory as time went by. May be due to some hitches, misunderstanding, constrains
or inconveniences here and there, but time to re-brand it now. At least with
much more fresh energy, vigor and vitality. I would therefore like to appeal to
the SONU chairman and secretary general, to give this matter a more in-depth
thought.
Try to excogitate, as the idea continues being propelled to
the rest of the Kenyan tertiary institutions. An all inclusive body, that will
give even the youngest student unions an opportunity to be heard within the
borders of our state. There is no value-less idea, there are just value-less
implementation methods. Wishing you and your SONU cabinet secretaries a
prosperous tenure
