Turmoil in Machakos School

Return of turmoil at 

Machakos School

By Nitram Iedn

MACHAKOS School was temporarily closed town forcing the more than 200 KCSE candidates to take their papers from outside the school.

It is probably the first time in the history of the school founded in 1950 that an examination class is send home during examinations.

 The closure also affected over 600 students in Forms One to Three who had to go home and report after the Form Four Class had left, underlining some rare loathing that is yet to be analyzed and categorized

The candidates were ordered out of the school after a meeting chaired by Machakos DEO Mr.Richard Midambo following disturbances that saw windowpanes at the Assembly Hall broken by riotous boys whose grievances were not understandable, an act the hints at raw carnage in school.

 Police recovered a toy pistol, machetes and rubber whips from the fourth formers.

 Midambo said the rest of the students in forms One, Two and Three were sent home until  last batch of the candidates with sit for their last paper and leave the school.

 The return of turmoil to Machakos School is an imperfection to a peaceful stint enjoyed at the School.It is an incident that took many by surprise, given that the School enjoyed a peaceful year since the posting of Mr Masaku Muiya as Chief Principal to lead the institution.

 After the turmoil begun, the Form Four boys were escorted back to the school under tight security to go and sit for the remaining examination paper the next day.

 Acting OCPD P.N.Wambugu confirmed the toy pistol and the whips were found in a bag inside the dinning hall after smoking the students out.

“It is difficult to establish the owner of the bag now but we have launched investigations into the incident”,he said.

 “There were no grievances from the form four students. They only wanted to protect the bad things they intended to do”,he said.

 Eye witnesses said some of the form four students were spotted in Machakos town during the day and were heard singing solidarity songs in readiness for mayhem. Nevertheless, hundreds of students from the other classes streamed out of the school that evening to avoid being harmed by the Form Fours.

 They spend the night in unknown places in Machakos Town where they were seen loitering, dressed in school uniform, T- Shirts, some carrying books in their hands.

 Sources indicated that the decision to send the boys home and scatter the form fours was reached at the advise of the District Security Committee after it analysed evidence and arsenal found with the Form Four class,  “ They seem to have a mission unaccomplished and we will not avail them the opportunity to cause mayhem in the school” said a security source.

It is also clear that the security team assessed the situation and concluded they could not guarantee security for the students given the prevailing circumstances.

 The form four students spent the night in the cold outside the local DCs offices  under armed guard after the police herded them there following the aborted riots.

During the night incident, the fourth formers broke glass widows using machetes and sticks, forcing the police to move a in and arrested them.

The discovery of a toy pistol, rubber whips and the machetes and an assortment of crude weapons remained a mystery to the school community, security agents and the towns residents, stressing that a criminal assault was on the cards.

Mr Muiya said a section of the form four candidates sneaked into the school and stole books belonging to other students.

The DC said posters advertising a “leaver” disco at a club in the show ground were recovered in the school. Police are investigating the origin of a text short message send to the Principal during the skirmishes.

“The white man cannot afford to erode our culture, the traditions of Machakos school must be kept pure. Military training is good for their future”, read the message sent to The Anchor by Mr Muiya. There was no immediate interpretation of the message, but there is no pretence that a perverted mind engineered the text. It seems the message was generated after the school administration remained firm that any form of hooliganism would not be tolerated. The School has had a history of annual lawless that was stopped last year after the posting of Mr Muiya

It is possible that the perverts were referring to this past lawlessness as the school’s ‘culture’ since the Form Four Class has endured riots since they were in Form I, four years ago.”It has been the school’s culture for the departing students to either beat up their juniors or cause damage on the school infrastructure as a departure signal” said a source that refused to be named. Reports indicate that the students planned to ‘discipline’ their juniors and destroy property before leaving.

Mr Muiya says one of his tasks in the school is to rid the 1950 institution of this negative attitude of destruction and instill a sense of positive thinking, that the students must leave the institution better than they found it since it has a long tradition of producing leaders.