Police are holding a KCSE candidate who detailed his plot to kill Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale.
According to the unnamed student who completed his Form Four exams at Elimu Bora Secondary School in Mandera County revealed the plot while writing his functional skills exam (English Composition).
The current syllabus requires all students taking their final exams to be tested in their creative functional writing skills. It’s through this exam that the student is understood to have used his ‘creativity’ to plot the treason.
Our efforts to get a copy of the student’s alleged exam content from the police officers proved futile.
Plotting! What comprises plotting?
This was from a fertile imaginative mind for crying out loud.
Did they give a guideline on what/what not to write about?
Who are these idle people?— Kerubo O’Nyamokami (@K_ONyamokami) December 1, 2018
It is not clear how the police came to learn about the student’s work as police are not examiners in the KCSE or why the examiners reported the matter to the police when in real sense, the student was just answering to the exam.
In 2013, a court barred Butere Girls High School from Kakamega County from staging their play Shackles of Doom scripted and directed by the current Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala on basis that it could incite Kenyans against members of the Kikuyu community.
The play was accused of being directly “unfair” to the Kikuyu Community whose range of names were adversely mentioned in the play and depicted by the scriptwriter as extremely corrupt and tribal in sharing the national cake.
In his defense, Mr Malala said “literature is a reflection of the society”.
The play was however allowed to perform at the National festival competition held in Mombasa at the fully packed Agha Khan hall after another court ruling.
Some social media users have laughed of the move by the police to detain the student who was “only applying his creativity in an exam.”
The minor will be arraigned in court next week after undergoing a mental test as ordered by a court.
Treason is punishable by death according to Kenyan law.
Any regime that arrests, detains and charges schoolboys with TREASON is illegitimate, weak, desperate and will soon collapse. That’s the stinging lesson of history. https://t.co/qg17GznWGwhttps://t.co/yyjehqgYQ5
— Dr. Miguna Miguna (@MigunaMiguna) December 1, 2018
It will be the second time in less than a year that the government is contemplating charging a citizen with treason.
The first time was in January 31st 2018 where NASA Coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga was “sworn in” as the People’s President at Uhuru Park – Nairobi- after the shameful presidential election which the electoral body had suspiciously declared Mr Kenyatta the winner was nullified by the Supreme Court.
The former Prime Minister snubbed the repeat poll that only attracted a paltry 39% voter turn out.
It will be interesting to see if the student’s said essay will be marked and it’s marks added to his grades.