MUTUMA MAATHIU GOT IT WRONG THIS TIME.

   

I’m an adherent fan and follower of Mutuma’s opinion articles and I read his recent article  on  “why matatu industry players are not about to strike over chrismas” with a lot of interest and it was quite true and straight because in the first place they never did strike.. Lot of reforms need to be done on the public transport sector in Kenya.However, I beg to defer with him when he cold-bloodedly declares that the welfare of Kenyans would be greatly improved by collecting matatus in one place and inviting one of our air force bombers to perform an ordinance on them, and then he says that our roads would be safer and world class if the matatu drivers were to be rounded up and exiled.

Let me remind him that not all Kenyans can afford private means of travel like the elites. If matatus were to be rounded up and bombed, probably that man who cleans his car would never be able to reach to work same as his tea lady. He forgets that if the matatu drivers are exiled, there children could sleep hungry and probably drop out of school due to lack of school fees. He is misguided when he point blank says that all the matatu drivers spend all their money on nyama choma and beer. Some of them are responsible guardians and parents and have people who depend on them.

Instead, he should have talked about the owners of the matatus, and these are elites who travel in the private vehicles he’s suggesting are the only ones who should be left on the roads. He forgets that they are the ones who sometimes dictates the number of trips a matatu should make in a day say from a point A to B and at the end of the day, they under-pay the drivers and hence the drivers in coalition with the conductors try to make extra income. He forgot that as they get bombed together with their matatus,the traffic cops should be bundled together with them for I believe that they are squarely  responsible for all the mess on our roads.Surely,life cant  cost the 50 shillings they pick. The government also as a role to play by erecting road signs and bumps in the right places and the commuters who continue piling in a already full matatu also have to be held into account.So,my  friend Mutuma,go slow on the matatu drivers!

MR.OKENG`OS STATEMENT ON ISSUE OF GIVING OF HOSTEL KEYS BEFORE LEAVING FOR HOME.

The NUC catering and accommodation officer Mr Tobias has this afternoon explained to the NESHCOURT the meaning of the memo which was posted on the campus noticeboards yesterday causing panic and anger in equal measure among the students body as it stated that students are advised to deposit the keys with house keepers in suswa room 109.On what the memo meant this is what he said,

"The main reason why students fail even in exams is because they dont follow regualtion,ignore them or are not aware of the meaning of some words.What that memo meant is that one can or refuse to leave the key.i advise the students to look up the meaning of the word "advised".It all depends with the individual and the word advise is not the same as orderded.If you go even to the airport,you are advised  to carry your bag on your own risk.Those that dont want to leave the keys can carry them home and they will not be different from those who will leave thirs as what matters is if one will have paid the required amount of money.If some feel that maybe we cant be trusted with the keys,they should know that their things will be save and that infact we have extra keys for every room."Said he,

"The PSSP students are required to surrender the keys before leaving for home and not to pay their accomodation fees.The number of days one stays with the keys from the opening day will be charged as one will be denying accomodation to the JAB students who deserve the accommodation.I'm aware some PSSPS have started mobilizing students through Facebook for support but that makes no difference.Unless one has a very special case and come to me personally in advance i will not allow any PSSP students to board in the students hostel."he clarified. 

On asking him to clarify on the issue of whether it is true the university has hired a building in town to act as hostel for the 3rd yers he said that he has no idea about such a thing.

 So relax comrades you can take the keys home if you want.

NUC CATERING AND ACCOMODATION OFFICER MR.TOBIAS SAYS HE IS NOT A TRIBALIST OR EVEN A LUO!!

Cooking in the students hostel is prohibited in NUC and many other public universities. In NUC,cooking  as seen many students face the discipline board once they are caught in the act. It is a thought that is so tempting in times like these when the lines in the mess are intolerable and exams are on. The man at the steering wheel of catering and accommodation in NUC is Mr. Tobias  Okeng`o  and he is the one who decides the fate of those found cohabiting in the sudents halls of residence as well as those found cooking. Last week some students reported complaints to NESH COURT  claiming that Mr.Oken`go was using selective justice in handling a case in which some stuents were found cooking in Runda.They claimed he let off some students who were of “his tribe” and pushed for the others to face the disciplinary committee.NESH COURT went looking for him and caught up with him in his office and  enquired about the issue is his full version of the story.

He started by showing the court several apology letters written by several students from almost all the tribes in this campus who he had forgiven and set free without pressing on the case.NESHCOURT was able to identify that majority of the cases were not from Luo and that he had also received apology letter from even a former high ranking former member of student council who he had demanded an apology letter from due to cooking in the hostels. “The claims are baseless and those students have just panicked and hence are looking for a scapegoat .infact,I have recalled the case from the chief security officer so as to handle it from my level and I also have called the students so that we can solve the issue amicably as part of my job is not to see students get expelled but to ensure your success in this institution so that you may leave a better person than you came. One of the rooms did not even have an electric cooker and I just ignored that fact because it could have been taken without authority from one of the offies,I acted blind on that and so let the students not mistake my kindness for my weakness “said mr.Okeng`o.He went further to call the chief security officer to confirm that he had recalled the case  and the school electrician who was in Eldoret  so as to prove to NESHCOURT that the room in question had no electric cooker by the time the students  were allocated to stay there. He further went ahead saying “I’m a parent, a resident of Narok,was once a student and a student’s leader and hence I know how hard life of a student can be especially in Narok and that’s the reason why I let the cases go Scott free sometimes.Infact,having a man or a lady in your room is not a problem as long as its not bothering your neighbours.And to clear facts,INFACT IM NOT EVEN A LUO CONTARY TO  WHAT MANT THINK,IM A SUBA”He declared.

This comes when the  first semester of the 2010\2011 academic year is coming to an end and an accommodation crisis is rooming over the next semester when all the students including the first years up to forth years will report back. It will be the highest number of students the university college will have ever held at once in a single period of time since its establishment. Measures such as withdrawal of PSSP students’ accommodation from hostels have been taken and also fact that accommodation will be given on priority of first years and the rest follow has been stated. A spot check by NESHCOURT on the state of the new men’s hostel reveal that the ground  and first floors are complete save the washrooms and that they might be the ones to host the many  JAB students next semester. The big question is what will be done to the classrooms and the mess so as to cater for the high influx of students? The students are all waiting with baited breath and praying that no group is sent home for the long holidays at the middle of their academic year.

WHY NAROK UNIVERSITY IS THE PLACE TO BE AFTER ALL …………..

The exams are around the corner and those taking CPA  are already deep into troubles of finding x and y which   since my grandpas time has never been found, and which I I’m not ready to crack my brains trying to find.Afterall,Mr Nyaoga of IRD 101 or it was something like that, was unable to explain to me where I would use logarithms and series of numbers in my journalism. All I want is to tell the world stories(good and bad)and earn my bucks and not to deal with silly numbers which are not even sure of themselves, take the case of 12,6*2=12,4*3=12,cleary,its not sure about itself and I’m not about to solve its silly problems! Its a time like this that people start coming up with silly excuses and complains about such a great university as the famous(I know many of you would say infamous)university on the heart of Maasai Mara.But I want to tell you simply why nuc is the greatest uni south of Sahara desert.

It is the only uni with the ever biggest mess with the most delicious and mouthwatering meals in the whole of the north and south rift. The services are excellent with the most polite servers like kina wainana and I swear they are all in the wrong profession, they should be in the clergy and altar boys. They are a bit bad as they all times encourage people to sleep in class by overloading food on their plates. The mess is never in a mess and they can’t ask students to queue like some forgotten tribe getting relief food, they can’t do that like some university I know. The mess is ever opened in time. You can buy as much mandazis as you want because they don’t allow villagers to come and take breakfast in the mess. Unlike majority of Kenyan universities, they serve various meals and I’m not talking about stale cabbages or ugali and half-cooked rice.

I love the security in our school, which other university boasts of over 70 security guards yet there is only one manned gate out of the 6 gates from every corner?20 drivers out of the 4 vehicles available and among them a wonderful bus which does not resemble a moving granary in any way.? The only place with the greatest lib in the world. The internet is so fast that sometimes it opens 3 pages instead of 1.

Many students wish to go to such a campus where the students elections are held on time and nothing but students voice that is heard and comradeship is the way to go and I tell them unless they have been to nuc,they are yet to go to any uni.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO USE TIME CONSTRUCTIVELY OVER THIS TIME.

Following the university lecturers strike, there has been a lot of free time at the disposal of students in the universities that have still remained open. Out of the seven public universities and many constituent colleges, only two have told their students to go home and the rest have students in their premises. This means that there is a lot of free time at the disposal of students with some having even the libraries closed. What it means is that basically these graduates are just eating and sleeping.

I would urge the graduates to put their free time into use because an idle mind is a devils workshop. It is upon such seemingly free times that one normally finds themselves indulging in drugs and other forms of substance abuse. The allure of random sexual escapades is almost irresistible and many unplanned pregnancies occur leading to dangerous abortions. In a bid to earn extra money to fuel their bad habits some may be tempted to indulge in crimes that may lead to prosecutions or careless loss of lives.

I therefore encourage the students to take it upon themselves to be responsible and try to put their free time into constructive use by continuing with their studies because at the end of the day, it’s neither the government nor the lecturers that will get hurt or get to lose. Those into sports and other talents like drama should practice hard for them to excel and also to keep temptations at bay. They can also form discussion groups and also be active in their clubs and movements by doing community service in their area of influence.

For those at home, instead of chasing around the form four leavers who have a profound desire to explore the world, they can volunteer to teach in the secondary schools around and also help parents in the farm or in the running of the family business. One can also use his or her skills acquired so far to engage in an income generating project to top up the parents efforts to pay their fees.

Meanwhile, the government should move swiftly and put the condition under control else students will continue suffering in a fight that they never initiated.

A PEEK INTO THE BIG BREAK FROM THE PITCH TO THE BUSH BY THE NUC MORANS,WHAT A DAY!!

Normally, Saturday mornings find me basking behind  Serengeti hostel with other professional idlers led by Chacha,Mogire and the number one “basker!”Obadiah,I swear this guy loves to bask so much that he will be found lying down like a giant monitor lizard even when its raining. as usual, we discuss politics of the week,football,campus politics, complain about the little HELB money  and concessionary who is getting laid by who or who is laying who  in campus or watch those taking what is known the walk of shame,ie those from sleep-overs. It was during our usual hang at the jobless corner that I got a call from my one good friend Dansoh the most cheeky computer  geek asking if I could urgently go to a new joint called THE GREENLAND CONSERVANCY, just a few hundred meters from campus and could I please go with my camera?

I thought its some news he wanted me to cover and with the lecturers strike on and fellas so idle, we are never short of news. Unfortunately, my camera was away taking photos of bikini clad bi*ches at Mombasa beaches with the tourism class so I informed him it was not possible until I heard him mention something like the rugby team bash! It was not a chance to be wasted on a Sarto that seemed to have been determined to take 34hrs to reach evening. On a record breaking 20 minutes I was good to go. Kenyan men and goat-roasting bashes! On my way to the place, there was this kind of excitement on the road from Runda to Total and I could see the skinniest of fellas(I can swear they don’t know the shape of a rugby ball) walking towards the party area pocketing and whistling happily to tunes that  they themselves couldn’t recognize! And I can swear that I’m not by any means trying to imply that my joker friend Colloh was among them!

The situation on the ground was equally interesting. As usual,rugde players are huge wild guys who if they bend down and goes on fours could easily be mistaken for rogue rhinos and I’m not referring to Jude, pronounced as “Chut” or Bensoh.So u can imagine a group of huge guys lying low on the wooden benches inside the park talking in deep baritone voices on the bush that Greenland Conservancy is.For once I though im embedded deep in Somalian Puntland with the Kenya army guys out to beat the Shabaab into a pulp. The one factor that kept reminding me that I was amongst some of the most intelligent brains in the country was that unlike the army who they resembled save the uniforms, they talked about things academia.see?the army talk about wars of conquest, their travels around the globe and of course their different encounters with various women of the world.So,it was during one such talk that Johnnie the rugby captain got to give us a lecture on the reason why boys tend to love their mothers more than their dads who they see as competitors and also how a guy named Odipus killed his father just to have his mother all to himself! And to prove Johnnie right Colloh,not the skinny one,colloh wa drama,said that such a though once crossed his (silly!)mind.

All the while, the natural law of the beauty and the beast was applying. You know how it goes between rudge guys and beautiful girls, they are like magnets! Darwin in his evolution theory claimed that male animals fight and the strongest ones survive to mate with the healthiest females for the continuity of the species and the law seems no exception to human beings!Alas,were it not for the side factors like money and social status, some fellas would sadly leave the world without passing their genes! Beauties were in plenty and the best thing is that campus guys go for galz with not only good stuff between their but also between their ears! So that is how I found myself into a debate on various cameras and scene setting mode in photojournalism with one cute Esther, a Nairobi based journalist who I can only contact through  colloh as he hindered all the efforts our exchanging the number saying that if we need to consult in anything we do it through him, but never mind, like in investigative journalism, we exchanged numbers right under his very(nosy)nose!Brayoh Omondi my very good friend and fellow blogger was in company of his queen Laurie and Epho was  accompanied by his sweetheart too and Jude and his coastal beauty.Danso the rogue bachelor seemed to have a new sweet catch but I’m not in a mode to make quick conclusion on the guy who is married to his number one love, Computers!!

Nico of the eating competition fame was in attendance as noisy and hungry as usual. On a casual chat  with Dansoh Ito while away time as we waited for the meal, I got to find out a short history of this group of great young men.

      INSIDE LIFE OF THE NUC RUGBY PLAYERS(THE MORANS),LIFE IN AND OUT OF THE PITCH.

The team was founded by Danson Gichui,John mugi and Alexie mwangi on their first week in campus as freshmen in 2009.They encouraged the rest to join. They had several challenges as it was the first time that majority of the players were playing the game and only about 3 knew about the game. Rugby is not a game of the weak minded or weak bodied and so they had to embark on a military-style of training to harden and toughen up the players. Stuff that turns mamas boys into commandos in the pitch. Due to the hard and tough training procedure that saw them running for around 10kms on daily basis, majority dropped out and the tough got going on.

The fist ever game they were beaten a shameful 43 to 0 by a local team of some idlers from Narok town so u can see the distance they had to go before being men in terms of rugby players.Sadly,they had no coach or a field and they had to contribute their own money to buy balls. A trend that goes on up to today as the school only provided  them with two very old balls which saw them contributing money almost on daily basis to have them sewn due to puntures.But on their persistence they have really moved on to the point of almost beating the national champions in the Maseno open tournament.

Life in the pitch is run with military precision with the captain calling the shots backed up by the disciplinian.Rugby being a very emotional game due to  the numerous push and shoves involved, requires strict code of discipline else the pitch would turn into  another battle field. Its not uncommon to see players exchange blows. The unwritten rule that everyone has to follow irrespective of their position in the team is that whatever time that one arrives later than the said time on the pitch either by 30 or one second, you have to take 5laps around the field.

The players, due to the hardships involved or what they undergo together has made them to stick together as brothers and even out of the pitch you will find that they are drinking buddies and often you find them passing time together and woe unto you if you decide to fight any one of them outside in the  clubs for you will never know where the rest will come from.

They are also a generous lot with not only big bodies but also big hearts take for instance yesterdays bash were the number of those that were invited and are not rugby players was almost double the team members.They contributed all the money and invited people just to feast on the goat.

Here is the list of the players in detail.

NAME	DESIGNATION	POSITION
John mugi(jonie)	captain	Winger/center
Danson gichuhi (dansoh/head)	Organizing sec	fly half
Brian kiprop(brayo)		prop
Cyrus rotich(cyroh)	Ass captain	Scrum half
Paul nthiwa(kamuma)		hooker
Kelvin kipruto(small)		Winger/center
Alex mwangi(alekie)	Team manager	Winger/center
Benson githui(head.master)		second rows
Livingstone lugaka(kuku)		fullback
Kevin magiri(big)	disciplinarian	Eighth man
Collins kamau(head.gear)		prop
Nickodemus matara(niko)		winger
Kennedy kibata(kennie)		hooker
Jude barasa(chut)		center
Wallela tulienge		Winger/center
Brian omari(omar)		scrumhalf
Augustine mukhwana		center
Kevin akoko(bush)		secondrows
Brian omondi(maGUYZ)		flanker
Emmanuel ochieng(unfit)		flanker
Robert wafula(chonjo)		Flanker/winger
Michael kidiori(mike)		Flanker/secondrows

Many are the times one’s life has been changed by their participation in what they love doing. Take for example many national players who are making fortune in the game and they are already enrolled in the universities and it’s not the degrees that is giving them millions.

Back to the bash, meal time saw a mountain of ugali and copious amounts of various flavor of juice served by Johnie the capie and meal time saw Sailoh,Brian Kiprop Johnie and Esther take to the serving box and overfill our plates with sembe,mbuzi fry,veges and kachumbari.There was plenty in store with the bold and shameless going for the second helping like kina Chacha  and Kelvo big going for several helpings which is not a crime anyway.

Lugaka,Kennie and Mwas proved to have diplomas and higher diplomas in roasting goat legs and heads to create soup out of them and just like in the traditional dowry negotiations ceremonies where one never got to finally know the destination of such parts of meat, nobody got to know the exact final destination of the head meat meant for the elders.

All along, Morris mwenda,my companion got everything  covered in video and I promise you that everything from those quick pecks and kisses in the bush were also captured and the video will soon be  available in this court and the newly created rugby players fan page in the Facebook.

Until the next issue I remain yours faithful,

“Team editor”