Oscar Agiso should have died on that March evening in 2024.
The 26-year-old was fast asleep inside a Kenyatta University bus that veered off the road and crashed near Maungu, Voi, as students headed for a class trip to Mombasa. He woke up in a hospital bed the next day, paralysed from the neck down.
“All the people who were sitting around me didn’t make it,” Agiso says. “I only realised we had been in an accident the day after the accident. I couldn’t move. My surroundings were strange. I wasn’t in the vehicle anymore.”
Eleven of his classmates lost their lives in that crash.
More than a year later, Agiso sits in his wheelchair, beaming with joy, surrounded by jubilant friends. He was among the 2,500 students graduating from KU on Friday.
He wore his graduation gown with pride, his face glowing with the quiet triumph of someone who has defied the odds.
“It has been a journey. A seven-year journey to be precise,” he says. “But I’m happy. I made it. I might be in this wheelchair, but it doesn’t matter that much because I value what I’ve accomplished. I didn’t picture myself graduating in a wheelchair. But here I am. I made it.”
Agiso joined Kenyatta University in September 2018 to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Health Service Management. He should have graduated last year, but the accident disrupted his final semester. He spent three months at Avenue Hospital in Parklands, one-and-a-half of those in the ICU.
“I didn’t go for official rehabilitation, but I’ve been doing therapy at home – doing physical therapy, exercises for the limbs and I also had counselling. That really helped.”
Despite his condition, Agiso completed his coursework with help from the university, which assigned a support assistant during exams.
“He would read me the questions, I would answer verbally and he would write them down for me,” he explains.
“I even managed to clear my retakes.”
He will graduate with a Second Class Upper Division, a proud achievement by any measure – more so for a man who cannot move his arms or legs.
“I accepted my situation. I accepted that I got into a bad accident. I accepted that I survived. And I accepted that my limbs are not working. So I just try to cope with each day as it comes.”
His words are slow but sure.
Asked what advice he has for young people going through hardship, Agiso replies:
“We should focus more on the destination than the journey. Look at me. It’s not about how I got here, it’s that I made it. I graduated and I’m happy about it, even with everything that happened.”
The fourth among five siblings, Agiso went to Ramba Boys High School in Siaya county.
While originally from Malua in Kisumu, he now lives in Nairobi’s Jericho estate with his family. His father is a photographer and his mother helps with caregiving at home.
“This is the time I’ve really needed people and my family and friends have shown up for me,” he says. “They’ve been incredibly supportive.”
Agiso is hopeful about the future.
“I want to hustle around and find work in my field, something that helps the community,” he says. “Graduation is not the end. It’s the beginning.”
He paused – smiling as his friends cheered around him again – and promised to enjoy the moment, saying he will just “accept that I’m graduating in this — my situation — and just be happy about it”.
