Bomb Blast of August 7, 1998: Tenth Anniversary

Today, Thursday, marks the tenth anniversary of the August 7th, 1998 bomb blast in Nairobi, and almost simultaneously in Dar-Es-Salaam. The Nairobi blast killed some 245 people, and injured and maimed some 5,000 more. As far as I cat tell, indeed, it was the single largest international terrorist attack in history, before 9/11.

I was on the third floor of Gandhi Wing, at the University of Nairobi, when the blast occurred at around 10.30 that Friday morning. It was so loud it couldn't have occurred much farther away than Lillian's, just across University Way, or so I thought in that instant. But it was also muted enough that, it did not necessarily sound like a bomb. In fact, my first thought had been that a very badly maintained bus, or some other vehicle, had grossly back-fired!

Soon enough, however, it became clear, as we went up and down Gandhi Wing, that the incident was farther away. As we gathered in small groups, we began to see smoke rising somewhere else, across town. At first we thought that the incident had occurred in the general direction of the industrial area, and then maybe the railway station, and then maybe somewhere in the vicinity of the station, or even NHC building. In hindsight, we were, unwittingly, skirting the issue -- the "epicentre."

From where we stood, we could see a scattering of rather agitated people running away from, and in the general direction, of the billowing smoke. Then we began to see pieces of paper everywhere in the smoky sky, over Moi Avenue and slightly to the east of it; and it seemed that some force kept releasing more and more paper into the sky. Clearly, some office had suffered a catasprophic blast, accompanied by fire. [Some of that paper eventually landed on the roof of Gandhi Wing; and when we went there to check, we found a slightly burnt photocopy of someone's national ID card and some other paper].

Before long, the quickly evolving story began to acquire clarity through word-of-mouth and such telephone calls as could yield concrete answers. That was before TV news kicked in with the facts, as could immediately be reported -- and it did not take long to do that. We heard of Ufundi Coop Building (which housed a teachers' SACCO) and Co-operative Bank House. We heard that the Minister of Education, Mr. Joseph Kamotho -- who was at that time engrossed (as I recall) in a tussle with the teachers' union -- was caught up in the blast.

This piece of news caused conspiracy theories to fly, including the one about the government of President Moi somehow having a hand in the blast -- with Kamotho as the target. What saved the day for Moi, and the nation, was the news which arrived very quickly out of Dar Es Salaam that there had been an explosion there as well. It would have been very difficult, otherwise, to exonerate Moi -- as the political atmosphere was quite charged at the time, as I recall.

The two explosions were quickly seen, then, as a coordinated terrorist act targeting US embassies in the two capitals. For a while, thereafter, we expected to get similar news from Kampala, but it never came. I think thast the realization that the country had been attacked by external forces helped to calm down the country, and to draw it closer. We were able to share in the grief of August 7th as one nation.

I did not visit "the site" of the blast that Friday, for it just did not seem to me the thing to do. Instead, I drove home at lunch time, having decided to defer my visit to the site, such as it could be, to Saturday. I did go on Saturday, and there were many Kenyan onlookers on that day -- as there were going to be for many of the days that followed. Police had cordoned off much of the blast area, as there was active search and rescue activity going on (including the matter of saving Rose). I would not, in fact, get the opportunity to stand at the base of the severely ripped-off Coop Bank Building, until three months or so later. And when I did, the enormity of what had happened at that place really sank in, even as I stood there those many days after the event.

That same weekend of the blast, I drafted a memo to my Vice Chancellor proposing a course in Disaster Management. Never got a reply. In the week that followed, I began to sell the idea of the course to my colleagues in the Department of Sociology, and to look into expanded possibilities. Soon enough, the idea of a course evolved into an entire Masters programme in Disaster Management -- and into a comprehensive Module II MA programme in the Department. From my base in the Department, I was quickly thrust into the Faculty's Curriculum Development and Income Generation Committees, where I spearheaded the crafting of what became the Faculty's Module II Programme. I was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the end of 1998, but that's another story.

What I would like to emphasize here, as I conclude, is that the bomb blast of August 7th, tragic as it was, became the catalyst, in a very direct way, for the graduate programme in Disaster Management at the University of Nairobi. I can make that claim without any fear of contradiction. But it was also probably the main reason (a) I became Dean, and (b) the Faculty's Module II programme (from undergraduate to postgraduate) took off when, and with the singlemindedness, it did.

Faculty of Arts: A Note on Module II Revenue, 1999-2002

I was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Nairobi, in December 1998. As Dean, I oversaw the launch of the Module II programme in the Faculty of Arts in 1999. Work toward the launch had in fact begun in the latter half of 1998, and I was involved in that too.

Through the development of a wide range of innovative, market-driven curricula under the Module II (Parallel) Programme, I steered the transformation of the Faculty of Arts into the country's cutting-edge player in university education. That programme opened up university-level learning opportunities for hundreds of Kenyans who had previously been shut out, and enabled many for the first time to further their education while keeping their jobs -- in other words, while at the same time continuing to earn a living.

During my watch, the Faculty's Module II revenue grew as follows, having been nil in the period running from July 1st, 1997 to June 30, 1998:

1. 1998/1999: Kshs. 12 million
2. 1999-2000: Kshs. 52 million
3. 2000/2001: Kshs 80 million
4. 2001/2002: Kshs. 105 million.

By the time I left office in late 2002, the Faculty had grossed some Kshs. 280 million in about four years of actual Module II operation. Only the Faculties of Commerce and Medicine had grossed more. Not many of Kenya's SME's could beat that.

The Faculty had in the process more than doubled the gross monthly income of about 100 lecturers involved in Module II teaching within the Faculty. It did so while saving the country millions of shillings in foreign exchange, which might have been spent by the same students if they had opted to go to foreign universities.

In so doubling lecturers’ income, Module II had great material effect on their personal lives. It rescued their household economies (in particular, a good number of cars) from ICU, as we used to say. I got some credit for that as Dean, but in reality we all made it happen with our collective effort; indeed, with our own sweat!

Those were heady days, as I recall -- certainly for me. Over time, however, one gets used to the gains (any gains, and any fruits of effort, in fact). Change -- changed circumstances, that is -- however much fought for, and however much for the better, becomes, inexorably, routine. And while routine embodies remembrance, it also tends to blur the very reasons which brought it about in the first place.

For a while there, Faculties first pushed for and then enjoyed a real devolution with respect to Module II resources -- vis-a-vis Central Administration. It seemed that we had created a way of doing things which nobody could seriously reverse. In effect, we had "CDF" before Kenya's Parliament invented CDF. Gradually, however, that window of devolved power closed (after my term), and Faculties are all the poorer for it.