“Institutions don’t fail, they are failed.”
“Mismanagement is corruption in slow motion.”
“Power does not corrupt institutions, bad leadership does”
Some years back, Kenyans watched an extraordinary and humiliating scene unfold at Moi University. Residents filmed themselves begging for forgiveness from former Vice-Chancellor Prof. Laban Ayiro after he had been chased out of office. That video was not about remorse; it was an admission of guilt. It was proof that a public university had been sacrificed at the altar of politics, ethnicity, and raw power.
Prof. Ayiro’s appointment as Acting Vice-Chancellor in 2016 by then Education CS Fred Matiang’i was lawful and temporary. Yet it was violently opposed, not because of incompetence or mismanagement, but because he was deemed an “outsider.” A section of Rift Valley leaders, led by Jackson Mandago and Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, demanded that Moi University be handed to their preferred candidate. Merit became irrelevant. Ethnic comfort became policy.
The pressure worked. Ayiro was pushed out. Moi University was captured. And from that moment, the institution began its steady collapse, with debt, unrest, academic decline, and reputational damage. Years later, no one can deny it. The very leaders who claimed to be “protecting the university” destroyed it.
Ayiro, meanwhile, moved on. In 2019, he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Daystar University, where stability, order, and academic credibility returned. That contrast alone tells the whole story.
This history matters today because it exposes the loud hypocrisy in our politics. When Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua raises concerns about school placements that uproot children from their home regions, he is branded a tribalist. Yet when leaders from the Rift Valley interfered with a national university, chased away a competent VC, and reduced an institution to ruins, it was sold as regional “defense.”
All MPs receive the same public funds. What differs is integrity. Some invest in schools, classrooms, and bursaries. Others invest in posh homes while their constituencies decay. These same leaders now shout the loudest, accusing others of tribalism, hoping noise will mask their failure.
This is not an attack on any community. It is an indictment of leadership without conscience. Moi University did not collapse by accident. It was dismantled deliberately. And the President and his political ecosystem cannot pretend this history does not exist.
Kenya will not heal by shouting “tribalism” every time accountability knocks. Institutions matter. Merit matters. And history, unlike politicians, does not forget.
