The untold moral dilemmas of student political life (3)

I conclude this series of articles with the final part of Nelson Mandela’s harrowing experience at Fort Hare University as well as share that of Second Liberation of Kenya hero, the late Hon. Kenneth Matiba, whilst he was at the tail-end of his studies at Makerere University College, Uganda, in the late 1950s.

Mandela concludes: I was, in a way, as surprised by my response as Dr Kerr.

I knew it was foolhardy for me to leave Fort Hare, but at the moment I needed to compromise, I simply could not do so. Something inside me would not let me.

While I appreciated Dr Kerr’s position and his willingness to give me another chance, I resented his absolute power over my fate. I should have had every right to resign from the SRC if I wished. This injustice rankled, and at that moment I saw Dr Kerr less as a benefactor than as a not-altogether-benign dictator. When I left Fort Hare at the end of the year, I was in an unpleasant state of limbo.

Now onto Matiba’s experience.

During the first year at Makerere, I participated in sports but after that the only social activity I took a keen interest in was the management and organisation of Makerere Students’ Guild which was the students’ government. In fact at the end of my third year, I was elected a member of the executive committee and the “Minister for Finance”.

A year later an incident happened which angered the college administration and some of the committee members were expelled before doing their final examination in one of the most cruel decisions I have ever experienced. The incident which provoked controversy was tragic. James Makosi was a Kenyan student who was doing medicine and had been referred for one year.

He was therefore at the end of the eighth year at Makerere waiting to sit his finals. The college had a midnight rule stating that students who were not inside their halls of residence by midnight should be locked out.

At about three in the morning, Makosi came back to college. He found the entrance was locked and tried to climb up the wall but it seemed he raked alcohol and could not make it to the first floor as some students had been before. Unfortunately, he fell and hit his head against a wall below and became unconscious. By midday the next day he was dead.

The President of the Guild, Elizaphan Mawagi, called an emergency meeting of the executive committee. During the meeting we passed a resolution that “the midnight rule was the major contributory factor to Makosi’s death and it had to go”.

The resolution was sent to the Principal, Sir Bernard de Bunsen. He and other college authorities were angered by that resolution and requested the committee to withdraw the accusation. We refused to do so. The college authorities became adamant that we should withdraw and we on our part stuck to our guns. We were due to sit our final examinations the following week.

A withdrawal note was written by the authorities for us to sign.

 Someone from the registrar’s office stood at the entrance of the examination room with the note for everyone in the committee to sign or else not be allowed into the examination room. I arrived there ten minutes before time. I did not know what was happening. I had received no explanation.

I did not know whether others had signed the note and gone into the hall or not. All is knew was that someone was demanding that I sign or else I would not be allowed to sit my final examination.

For a time, I stood there petrified. Other students were streaming into the hall. I had to take a hard decision. In the end I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and I signed the withdrawal note. I was allowed in with only three minutes to spare. It was a painful decision and I have never known whether I was morally right or wrong.

 Elizaphan Mawagi of Uganda and John Nyatome of Kenya refused to sign and they were sent down and never took their examination. All the others, like me, signed and we were allowed to sit.

Spare a thought for how much some students with a conscience have to go through at such a young age!