THE WAKE UP CALL

As I slept the previous night I looked forward to so much. At about four in the morning a call comes in waking me up from my sleep. Normally, nobody calls in at four unless someone is dying or I had asked them to. It was a panic call from the school. She had called to inform me on the unrest and she asked me to be there urgently. I didn’t take it seriously at first because the biggest unrest I’ve seen in Maseno University is when the students are campaigning for the elective positions in the student organization. I couldn’t imagine anyone starting their campaigns in the wee hours of the morning like that.

Sleep caught up with me as text messages kept flowing in from the students who were in the heart of the unrest. I woke up an hour later thanks to another panic call. This time I believed it was real. I woke up with a start and got dressed real quick. On my way all I could see was scared faces. Students were making calls home and saying something about someone getting attacked in Mabungo, a common shopping center that has been hosting a few students for quite a while.

Apparently a student had been critically injured and rushed to hospital. The student had sustained injuries from a foiled robbery in Mabungo at his place of residence. In the wake of the recent crimes, it was understandable why the students were very agitated. Just recently another young lady was raped as she walked to her hostel and the students were not satisfied with the actions taken if any. She was from a late night event hosted by Safaricom Live within the school when she was attacked and the boyfriend was injured as he tried to save the situation.

It is sad how students cannot live in peace while they pay through their noses for security. The last incident was the last proverbial straw that broke the camel’s neck. Maseno students have always been known as the peace loving types which I’d now like to refer to as sleeping giants. The anger had piled up for a while and it took a toll on the locals at Maseno center and Mabungo center. There was debris of fridges along the Kisumu-Busia road. There was property strewn all over. The owners tried to save a little of what was left from the fire and the looting.

Wanton destruction of property was uncalled for but the students and locals took advantage of the lapse in security and looted the shops around there. It was an ugly sight. The police had held the students in the main campus hostage. The police had completely surrounded every possible exit and all the students inside could do is hurl stones at them. The police, both administration and local police, appreciated the gesture by launching tear-gas canisters right at them.

The students ran in a stampede on every shot. Everybody ran helter skelter and it’s only now that a sense of unity was not really making sense. All I could hear from outside the school was screams and moans. The war cries were encouraging enough every time they survived a tear-gas canister launched at them. The police noticed a rise in the number of students who were outside and they realized they had to deal with two battle fronts. They were outnumbered twenty to one but they still carried on. All we had was stones and numbers anyway and they were well prepared for that.

As the students in the inside had them busy, the students outside hid at a vantage point and targeted the civilian cars passing after the barricades were removed. The trailers didn’t feel the hail of stones as much as the sedans and saloon cars. They hurried past ignoring the bumps. Anybody on their way would have been road kill. The students put the barricades again after the police relaxed a bit. The police at the gate still maintained the siege. Nobody went in or out for fear of the worst. The few students who were unlucky enough to get caught were held in the AP holding area.

After a lot of running battles, stampedes that led to several people injured and looting and destruction of public property, the students got convinced to have peaceful dialogue. No sooner were they out than they got rowdy again. The numbers on the two war fronts was balanced and the police were being pushed up the wall. They might have had the live bullets out of desperation. For when push comes to shove probably.

Students were interviewed by the press that was present. Just as the police were being pushed to the edge by the very angry mob of students, the vice chancellor’s car was spotted at the students went at ease hoping against hope for dialogue and understanding. The students became a little calm and listened to the VC. He wasn’t audible and he had to request to be given time to organize for a public address system so that he may address the students at the graduation square.

In the meantime, the students did not want to be addressed while some of them were in custody of the Administration police. The students marched to the AP camp and demanded the freedom of the students. The APs tried to make an example of them but nobody really cared about that.

The students that got trapped as they fetched water or any other business in the main campus were held under a siege. Again. The rest followed the VC to the pavilion at the graduation square. After a while the police decided to let them go to avoid getting two battle fronts as there was a mass piling up behind them. They were allowed to walk past the gate in a single file with hands behind their heads like it was prisons shake down.

The students hurried to the graduation square and got to hear the few things the VC had to say. The VC had promised to build a swimming pool in an effort to calm the insecure students. It didn’t work out well until an aspiring SOMU chair, James Okumu, took the mega phone and addressed the students on the way forward. The VC had recognized the accommodation and security problems. The students gave him the benefit of doubt and calmed down. A procession was led into Mabungo to view the residence of the victim.

The damage done to the place was appalling. A hotel was burnt down and they were collecting the debris. Much more was turned over earlier in the night and all we witnessed was in a sorry state. The students were turned down at the residence and later informed that the student was recuperating in the hospital.

Meanwhile, the students had stormed the mess for food on being told by the VC that they’d eat for free that day. The cashier’s place was looted and all of the cash taken. Everybody was rowdy in there until they started serving. Some students were not the rowdy type and stealthily engaged in panic buying because all the shops were closed and there was no place to get food for supper or lunch.

A cease fire was called and the students went back to their respective residences. Some went back in fear of retribution from the locals for the damage and harm caused. Am sure peace will be maintained by all means as promised by the VC and the police. It’s a long shot but we tried. We gave them a wake up call. 

check out the video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsSvcgY9nO0&feature=g-all-u