Three decades ago it was rare to find a student, forlorn and dejected, sitting on the elevated decks of Hall Ten of Kenya’s premier university. But on this June 11 day of 2024, a second-year student, the son of a ‘Mama Mboga’ and a ‘boda boda’ rider from Nyakach, was parked on the concrete pavement. He was angry and hungry.
The student had not eaten. He was not sure of anything before sundown. His parents had not paid for his university tuition. He had received demand notices from the university.
The tired student was waiting for the evening to spend the last Sh50 he had on beans and chapati, the common hunger coolant for university students from poor families.
The M-Pesa notice he was expecting hadn’t arrived. Clicking messages was not the relief supply he was expecting from his parents from Nyakach constituency’s Nyabondo plateau.
One or two bored students would sit that way back then, but this was the exception. Today idleness is the rule rather than the exception. The exceptions were students nursing lingering hangovers from last night’s indulgence.
Such students were likely recovering from excesses at Sabina Joy, Karumaindo, Modern Green or some other dingy place in downtown Nairobi. These were popular joints for lovers of beer and loud music. Franco’s Mario was tending then.
The students would return with collections — a campus metaphor for casual engagements with sex workers. The victims of fast-pick liaisons would ‘fight’ most of the night.
They would later air themselves out on the pavements, trying to nurse appetites for the next round of soft campus life. Some preferred rough life.
Three decades ago, there were classy ways of idling. There was a lively swimming pool, ensconced between then the Central Catering Unit, the sports field, Hall One, Hall Two and Kitchen One of the University of Nairobi.
The benches around the swimming pool housed assorted hangover nursers. The idlers would also feast their eyes on swimmers who came in many shapes and sizes, wearing costumes, which exposed the generous endowments of their peers.
The Central Catering Unit (CCU) and Kitchen One were dining facilities for boarding students. The catering units served sumptuous breakfasts, multiple-course lunches and king-size dinners. There were three guaranteed meals a day.
Public university students were pampered back then on taxpayers’ account. Eggs — well done, boiled, scrambled or fried — were constant features of breakfasts. There were assorted fruits, teas, mandazis, sausages, marmalade, milk and toast, among other dishes.
Students would saunter into the CCU or Kitchen One, after hot showers in clean hostel bathrooms. Rooms had regular supplies of toiletries. Sanitation officers dropped in regularly, to ensure future leaders dined and lived well.
The once great Hall Ten, named for Dag Hammarskjold, a former United Nations secretary general (1953-1961) from Sweden — is crying for renovation. The kiosks along the corridors don’t belong.
The current President and his deputy were UoN students of that era.
If breakfasts were kingly decades ago, lunches were queenly. Dinners were three-star hotel kind of service. Meatballs filled the tables that also had assorted dishes, ranging from fish, chicken, roasted or fry, meat boiled or fry, and vegetables.
Fried, roasted, boiled potatoes and assorted carbohydrates competed for youthful appetites. There was chapati, which students called ‘dialogue’.
Chapati acquired the moniker in a political way. Students then used to demand dialogue with the President Moi government to discuss their grievances.
Kariuki Chotora, a Moi loyalist from Nakuru, was reported saying if students wanted ‘dialogue’ to end campus unrest, then the government would have to give it to them. Since then chapati became ‘dialogue’.
The students wanted boom — student allowances — increased and catering services improved. These services were great, but impressionable students believed they deserved better. Students also wanted political detainees released and academic freedom protected and guaranteed.
Three decades ago, the university student population was much lower, but the economy was also much smaller. The tax base was tiny, but it sustained modest living standards for university students.
The current deprivation and degradation of life in public universities and the high tuition need to be addressed to restore standards. Poor planning is at the core of the challenges of university education and funding.