WANJAWA: Dons must draw the line and say betrayal ends here

The strike is on. Lecture halls are empty. Public universities are silent. Kenya’s dons – the custodians of knowledge, research and critical thought – are on the streets once again.

The grievance is familiar: the government has refused to honour the 2017-21 and 2021-25 collective bargaining agreements. To make matters worse, the 2025-29 CBA, which the Uasu has submitted as the basis of collective bargaining, has been left to gather dust before it’s even implemented.

This is not an isolated dispute. It is the continuation of a long history of betrayal. Every CBA since the 1990s has followed the same tragic rhythm: prolonged negotiations, strikes, return-to- work formulas and then broken promises.

The dons teach history, but they are also trapped in it. From the very beginning, when Uasu clawed its way into recognition in the 1990s, the state has never negotiated in good faith. CBAs have become the structure, but not the solution.

The pattern has been brutally consistent: endless negotiations stretched over years; strikes launched as the only language the state seems to understand; return-to-work formulas signed with pomp and brouhaha, but dishonoured before the ink has even dried; partial implementation, staggered payments, arrears quietly shelved.

The common denominator is glaring: government never keeps its word. CBAs have become pacifiers, not contracts. They are political fire blankets – signed to cool tempers, not to deliver justice.

Here is the tragedy: the dons, the intellectual vanguard of this country, continue to fall for the same routine. Strike. Negotiate. Sign. Resume duty. Wait for betrayal. Repeat.

Every time, the government knows the ending before the play begins. They know the lecturers will eventually grow weary, sign on the dotted line and troop back to class.

The return-to-work formulas are nothing but well-crafted lies, not worth the paper they are written on. It is almost comical – professors of strategy, social engineers, political scientists, economists, philosophers – falling for the same bait, the same trap, year after year. If this were an exam, the lecturers themselves would be candidates for retake.

Dons, let us be clear: this strike cannot end with another worthless return-to-work formula. To do so would be to betray not just ourselves, but the future of Kenya’s universities. The government has perfected dishonesty. It is time Uasu perfected leverage. The strategy must change – right here, right now – while the strike is still alive.

Stop treating CBAs as gentleman’s agreements. They are contracts. Enforce them in court. Sue Treasury, sue Inter Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum of the Federation of Kenya Employers, sue universities. Create legal precedents that make it costly for the state to breach. Litigation may be slow, but the shadow of contempt orders and frozen accounts will wake Treasury up faster than chants on University Way.

Right now, the public thinks lecturers strike for money. That narrative must change. Uasu should translate the fight into a language citizens understand: “When government cheats us, it cheats your children. When research is unfunded, innovation dies.

When we leave for jobs abroad, Kenya bleeds talent.” This is not about pay. It is about national survival. Strikes hurt students and turn parents into enemies. We should think creatively: work-ins: teach but refuse to grade.

Students side with lecturers when they feel the pinch of missing transcripts.  Also teach-outs: deliver public lectures in parks, markets and county halls. Show the country the brainpower it is squandering. And digital activism: expose the government’s deceit online, with data and storytelling that embarrass them globally.

Treasury claims, “There is no money.” Yet MPs raise their perks overnight, new offices mushroom and billions vanish in corruption. Uasu must do forensic audits of government spending, publish reports and shame the hypocrisy. Imagine the power of headlines: “Government denies lecturers Sh8 billion while MPs share Sh12 billion in allowances.” That is how you shift the battlefield.

Education is a public good, not a luxury. Uasu must storm Parliament, county assemblies and budget hearings. Put MPs on record: “Do you support starving universities?” Let it be an electoral question. No politician likes being seen as anti-education.

Kenya’s universities do not exist in isolation. Uasu should rally global faculty unions, development partners and academic networks to expose the state’s duplicity. A government that boasts about being a knowledge hub but can’t honour contracts with its scholars deserves contempt.

This is bigger than lecturers’ salaries. It is about what kind of country Kenya wants to be. Does it want to be a knowledge economy or a marketplace of mediocrity? Does it want to nurture research or export brains to foreign universities?

When the government treats lecturers as disposable, it tells the youth that education is worthless. It tells scholars abroad not to come home. It tells innovators that their ideas will rot in underfunded labs. In short, it mortgages the country’s future.

Comrades, the struggle is just. But the strategy is broken. Stop being predictable. Stop signing papers that mean nothing. We must stop mistaking vuvuzelas for leverage.