Akatch Jim is my name, SecGen(SONU) is my seat

Comrades of the world: yet again one important institution of the unending struggle against vice, the Student Organization of Nairobi University (SONU), goes to its annual poll. A significant fete that has lost its salt over the decades of rising counter-revolutionary politics and disappearance of ideology. While this piece wouldn’t like to nag and complain about the rather diluted influence of SONU over the years, it cannot avoid occasional reference to the would be’s, whilst remaining a yardstick for a discussion on the way forward.

It is the duty of every man who sets foot upon this earth to in anyway he is capable try to make a positive impact upon his/her society. More is the burden of responsibility cast upon such men that society has blessed with an opportunity of being its crème Del a crème. Students with their youthful dynamism, intellectualism and vast resources available in campus fall way much into the core of this group. It is thus no surprise that many a positive revolutions ushering in democratic innovations and changes have been in a wide scale pushed forward by college students. The recent African and Arab revolutions’ afford vast examples.

So what then is the place of SONU, the premier student organization in the region in this regard? More so, how relevant are these elections in shaping the struggle?

Our elections, sadly, have been hijacked over the years by reactionaries both in the student fraternity, the administration, the political class, the corporate world and more recently, the black market.

SONU, once a bastion of the second liberation; is now seen as a club of half clowns, executive busy bodies and hooligans. It has become a little more than a conglomerate of prefects and a little less than a professional academy of corruption. It has graduated in leap and bounds, albeit negatively, to an organization that summons riots to destroy street lights because of power outages in campus hostels while calling for press conferences in solidarity with corrupt government officials and politicians and celebrating tax increases on basic commodities. It is a step away from being a simple cocoon of officials brandishing expensive gadgets while being errand boys for University administrators.

What to expect when the very first lesson when one joins the executive branch of the Union is a posh retreat in Karen, where the top brass of the University administration spend a whole day mentoring student leaders on how to circumnavigate procurement procedures, with exceptional panache!

Elections are even more humorous. They are becoming less and less distinguishable from ethnic census in campus. In recent times experience has shown that there is no difference between an interview for FORBES list and SONU elections. The heavier the purse,  the more certain that comrades will ‘overwhelmingly’ elect you or more accurately, be recorded to have voted for you. It is laughable that for you to convince students you must explain to them, rather descriptively, how you will convince the Administration to let you win the election or rather help you!

So should progressive comrades throw in the towel and boycott elections in protest? While that may seem the only logical thing to do in the circumstances, I believe in the extreme alternative. Those comrades should rise and prove to the world that an element of progression still exists. That there are those who believe that the course of history cannot end on a footnote of defeat. Moving forward we all appreciate the need for the reawakening of SONU to guide forth the revolution to realize the third liberation of this great nation.