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Kenya: Weird World of Wasanga, Ongeri, Iwu And Kivuitu
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION
21 March 2008
Posted to the web 20 March 2008
Kipkoech Tanui
Education minister, Prof Sam Ongeri, has obviously forgotten the saying trust and credibility are like virginity - you only lose it once!
This life lesson has also eluded the overseer of the disgraced Kenya National Examination Council (Knec), Mr Paul Wasanga, and Ongeri's permanent secretary, Prof Karega Mutahi.
To the trio, the recall of results of 4,438 out of 276,239 children who sat Form Four exam last year is insignificant. Schools, however, are rejecting the downgrading of earlier results ostensibly because of a computer error. Others want to go to court to demand judicial scrutiny of the original scripts.
Ongeri's three-man band is taking over from Mr Samuel Kivuitu. Wasanga may not be outspoken, cantankerous or a purveyor of irritating jokes like the chairman of the Electoral Commission.
As dishonourable as it was, Kivuitu at least told us the origins of his pressures and that he did not know whether Kibaki won fairly. He inferred he should at least get credit for managing nine million ballot papers.
Wasanga seemed to borrow the line saying the botched results were a drop in the ocean given what was at hand. Both seem to conveniently forget that even one product of 'computer error' can forever smash the integrity of exams.
But like Kivuitu, Wasanga may soon ask us why we think he should resign. He will argue he was not alone, and that such technical failures are not foreseeable! But to Wasanga I say, unlike elections, whose results we can undo in five years, exams present a different challenge. Here there is no room for spoiled papers and re-tallying after release!
One can imagine the trauma of the affected. Those who had initially scored grade A now have A-, while those who scored A- went down to B+. Many have refused to return the results slips, which will further undermine the integrity of the crucial papers in the job and education circuit.
At Kimuri Secondary School, the local community is shocked. Knec said 22 of its candidates did not enter the examination room! One school curiously had 119 As in maths and only 19 As in English! At Ng'iya Girls, a candidate with 72 points was awarded A-, while another with 73 had a B+.
In West Pokot District, results of 224 candidates were recalled and nationally, 1,800 candidates were found to have cheated. This means last year, under Wasanga's watch, the number of cheats caught trebled compared to 2006.
After all this mess, in which the best students the teachers knew performed poorly, and for which there were massive claims of sale of examination papers, Prof Karega called it a "simple error". He argued the mean grades had not been affected. Wasanga said the results had been recalled for "slight adjustments".
Brilliant Wasanga has a ready answer, much like Kivuitu's free counsel of courts: "There is a period for questioning as well as a window for re-checking. Let those affected come forward so that we can look into their cases."
Ongeri, the ever-smiling machine, dismissed head teachers' call for an independent body to remark the exams and the resignation of Wasanga's team (Kivuitu's pack is still in office). Explanation - the problem only affected 0.6 per cent of the candidates and just 857 schools! Now, think of the candidates preparing for this year's exams, as well as their teachers and parents.
Like Kivuitu, Ongeri, despite saying he knew what the problem was, promised he would get to the bottom of the matter. One can just hope Ongeri, Karega and Wasanga are not keen students of the older Kivuitu, whose perfect art is called 'top-up'. The tool of trade is a small branded bottle called 'whitewash'.
Last week, matatus sharing registration plates were impounded. Maybe soon, Central Bank will also recall currency notes over a 'computer error'.
However, if Kivuitu shocks you, then you have not heard of Prof Maurice Iwu, the head of Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission. His has been called the 'Janjaweed election' in which voting was disrupted using guns and ballot papers thumb-printed at party headquarters. There were results even for states that never voted.
Iwu says he is a pharmacist, but the Nigerian Pharmacy Board does not recognise him. The university where he claims to have studied doesn't recall him. But like Kivuitu, he is still congratulating himself for a "job well done". He and his fellow commissioners are also still in office as electoral disputes persist, drawing awesome salaries.
The point is: We must salvage our institutions of integrity fast or we shall sink, including those that told us Ghanaian President John Kufuor was flying in for tea and that the recorded police shooting in Kisumu was a Rambo movie.
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The writer is The Standard's Managing Editor, Weekend Editions
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