University Student Cracks Up During Live Presser: "Comrades Are Sleeping On Trees"

• Kenyan student leaders are known for making powerful and sometimes controversial remarks during press conferences
• University student leaders who ascend to the national political sphere tend to maintain the approach of addressing the public
• The Technical University of Kenya leaders were raising concerns about the challenge of accommodation at the institution

Michael Ollinga is a journalist at TUKO.co.ke with over 10 years of experience covering courts and crimes, special reports, and current affairs in Kenya.

Student leaders of Kenyan universities are known for making fiery and powerful statements when advocating for their colleagues' rights.

University student leaders in Kenya

Some student leaders have made it to the national political spaces and won parliamentary and other influential positions because of their involvement in campus politics.

Embakasi East MP is one such student leader who rose from leading the University of Nairobi students to become a powerful legislator in the National Assembly.

Owino, whose real name is Paul Ongili, remains dear to university affairs and is among the few politicians who have vocally stood up against fee increments and protested against Higher Education Loan Board (HELB) loan disbursement delays.

Despite being an MP, Owino's public statements during rallies and press conferences are typical of fiery university student leaders.

Babu Owino's rise from University of Nairobi student leadership

His speeches, like before, are synonymous with powerful quotes, controversial sayings, vivid descriptions, and humongous vocabularies that leave audiences and even journalists in stitches.

This scenario was reconstructed in a recent viral video in which student leaders of the Technical University of Kenya, formerly the Kenya Polytechnic, addressed the media.

The student leaders raised concerns about the accommodation challenge behind the government's promise of more land to build hostels.

According to the students, the government had promised to allocate a parcel of land to the institution at the heart of Nairobi to build hostels.

Accommodation at Technical University of Nairobi

They expressed their fury against the government, saying it had failed to honour its pledge, further worsening the accommodation crisis for comrades.

It was during this address that the spokesperson of the students' leaders exaggerated the situation on the ground to the extent that comrades who had accompanied him could not hold their laughter.

The leader claimed that the accommodation crisis had pushed some students to live in trees and called on the government to make land available for the construction of affordable hostels to avert the situation.

"The land for the institution was to be given to us. We have comrades who are living on trees because they don't have somewhere to sleep, yet we have someone generating income from the land to be allocated to the institution," the spokesperson said as his colleagues burst into laughter.

The KTN News anchor presenting the news item could not hold her laughter, either, as she transitioned to the next presentation.

Recently, Owino called out student leaders for remaining silent amidst government proposals t increase university fees.