Police in Kisumu are investigating the assault of University Academic Staff Union Maseno chapter secretary general Stephen Onyango.
County police commander Alphonse Wambua confirmed the incident saying it was being probed. Onyango was allegedly assaulted by university security guards and sustained injuries on Monday.
“We will take necessary action once the investigations are concluded,” Wambua told the Star on phone.
He was treated at Chulaimbo subcounty hospital and discharged. The secretary general reported the matter at Maseno police station after seeking treatment.
Onyango had to seek police protection in order to retrieve his car from the university grounds where he had parked it before the assault.
He said he was assaulted at the Siriba campus when he was attending a disciplinary committee meeting of two staff who are members of the union.
“I was pushed, assaulted and bundled into the Probox car belonging to the security firm. They drove me away to an unknown destination and later brought me back to Maseno shopping centre,” Onyango said.
He added, “I had shown up to attend a disciplinary committee I was officially invited to, for two staff members who are members of the Union and who under the rules of natural justice, the labour laws and university policy documents including the human resource manual, must be represented by the union.”
Onyango said that university vice chancellor Prof Julius Nyabundi demanded that he leaves the meeting and ordered him to be thrown out of the institution.
“I was attending in my capacity as the chapter secretary general of the union and not in an individual capacity, whatever the differences that the VC might have against me. It is a very unfortunate incident,” he said.
When contacted Prof Nyabundi and the university’s director of communications Owen Onyango did not pick calls or respond to text messages for a comment.
Onyango questioned the reasons behind his attack despite having been invited by the university management to attend the meeting, according to the letter seen by the Star.
