By TEE NGUGI

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The circus surrounding Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja’s degree or lack thereof is sickening. Is establishing attendance in and graduation from a university such a Herculean task?

We know most African universities, except those in South Africa, are always at the bottom of the pile in global rankings. We know thievery, perpetrated by administrators, has brought many of them to their knees.

We know, especially in Kenya, that tribalism, not merit, determines who gets what academic position. We saw demonstrations led by a governor and other politicians demanding that a fellow tribesman be made vice-chancellor of a university. We know that many universities in Kenya are tribal enclaves, headed and largely staffed by tribesmen and women. We know that in many universities, women students are forced to sleep with their lecturers in order to “pass”. The expose of “sex-for-grades” at a Ghanaian university was a national and continental shame.

We know of these and other failures of the African university. But surely, keeping records of who attended and graduated should not be one of them.

Yet we have been treated to a back-and-forth between the Commission for University Education, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, and Uganda’s Team University.

Just as aggravating is the media’s blow-by-blow account of this saga, without trying, as media in other regions would, to independently verify the claims and counter claims. The failure of all these institutions to establish the facts has inspired Sakaja to make wild claims: that President Uhuru Kenyatta is behind his degree woes.

How is the president able to erase records at a university? Ridiculously, a section of the population believes his claims.

In an important paper titled In Praise of Alienation, the late Abiola Irele decried the superficial acquisition of habits, institutions and systems that came to us as a result of our encounter with Europe. He argued that we must not just embrace education but its spirit as well.

My understanding of Abiola’s meaning is that learning to read and write is only a means to an end. These are only tools to enable the higher goal of pursuit of knowledge.

There are also values and habits of thought that an education should instil: a critical mind, tolerance for different ideas, and personal integrity. When a university sends its graduates out into the world, it expects to shine in the light of their brilliance and accomplishments. The graduates cement the university’s reputation as a place of knowledge, excellence and esteem. That university becomes a proud national cultural asset such as MIT, Yale, Oxford.

By contrast, the African university auctions PhDs and degrees to the highest bidder. Bodies such as CUE, without shame, give legitimacy to these fakes. The African university has failed to build its educational edifice on values such as pursuit of knowledge, critical minds and personal integrity.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator