Disquiet has hit secondary school heads association as scramble for its top seat mounts ahead of today’s election. The Sunday Standard has established that some officials are convening secret meetings to scheme how to take over key leadership seats in an exercise fast getting murkier as past agreements on regional balance are thrown to the back.
Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (Kessha) current Chairman Kahi Indimuli is defending his position.
Focus has however shifted to who wins the vice chairman’s position as that effectively puts the candidate to a near automatic place to take over chairmanship when Indimuli’s term expires.
Delegates who spoke to Sunday Standard said serious disquiet is fast eating into the union over which region will succeed the chairman when his term ends in five years.
But Indimuli denied the association has been rocked by wrangles ahead of the polls. “I am not aware of any infighting. Al I know is that we have always had peaceful elections,” he said. Under the association leadership agreements, regions retain slots in a well-negotiated arrangement that take cares of each area’s interest. But Central region, which has been assigned the national secretary slot, now wants the vice chairmanship as its members scheme to succeed Indimuli. Under the association’s leadership agreements, the vice national chairman’s slot is reserved for the coastal region. Wiliam Kuria, a delegate from Central, who is contesting vice chairman slot, yesterday said it will be a compromise exercise. “The whole thing is based on negotiations and it is too early to talk about it. Things will be clearer after Saturday’s National Governing Council (NGC) meeting,” said Mr Kuria. A text circulating among the delegates rooting for his ated an uproar.
“Elections is Sunday all county officials, all our treasurers in the sub-counties be at Mombasa on Saturday. We shall have dinner together and lobby for vice chairmanship,” reads the message to one of the regions delegates. Karisa Karisa, the vice chairman contestant for Coast region, insists that the Kessha elections must honour existing agreements. “We are doing all it takes to win the slot. We are networking and lobbying other regions, including central,” said Karisa. In today’s elections, Grace Gituku is defending the secretary position as Amos Cherono seeks re-election as national treasurer. Justus Magara is seeking the programmes coordinator position as Lillian Mwema defends the Principal of the Year (Poya) and Teacher of the Year (Toya) coordinator. Juliana Kirui is seeking the students’ council coordinator while Farah Ibrahim is gunning for vice secretary position. Eunice Nyambane has expressed interest to the trustees’ slot. During the reign of John Awiti, the chairmanship was reserved for Western Kenya. After Awiti’s retirement, the national chairmanship was given to Indimuli, also from Western. But after the delocalisation exercise by Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Indimuli was transferred to Machakos Boys School, effectively moving the chairmanship to Eastern region.This means contestants challenging the national chairman’s position in Sunday election must come from Eastern. For North Eastern is reserved the vice secretary slot as national treasurer belongs to Rift.
The vice national treasurer is reserved for Nairobi as Nyanza gets organising secretary and Western vice organising secretary. The elections talk has dominated the annual delegates conference scheduled to take place in Mombasa starting Monday. The meeting is expected to discuss the Sh4 billion students medical cover being implemented by the Ministry of Education through the NHIF. Also expected to feature in the meeting is the growing trend of students’ sexual abuse that saw Moi Girls School closed for one week following rape allegations.
Courtesy of The Standard