Punish politicians with fake school certificates

Kenyans have been taken through a swirl of drama as politicians try hard to explain how, where and when they acquired their degrees. Aspirants for the seats of President, deputy president, governors and deputy governors are required to be university graduates to run.

Politicians with questionable academic record have now gone on a degree-hunting spree with incongruities in their stories of how they got their certificates littered all over in the true sense of the theatre of the absurd. For MPs, the degree rule had been deferred in 2013 and 2017 and was to come to effect in 2022, when courts ruled to quash the requirement. MPs are still required to prove that they have a secondary school qualification and, even on this, the circus has continued.

But it is time the accusations and counter-accusations were stopped and action taken. The first port of call should be the institutions of higher learning that politicians allege to have graduated from. It is those institutions’ right and duty to defend their reputation that is being dragged through the mud.

It should not be difficult for the universities to claim their students and expose the fraudsters. Those leaders the universities find are using their names without having gone through them should be promptly prosecuted and charged with fraud.

The Commission on University Education (CUE) and the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) should also bite the academic frauds out of the system. They must bring to an end the ensuing confusion, especially in cases where the individual universities are not willing to take the frauds head-on.

However, the electoral commission, CUE and concerned universities should sue the culprits, if any, and have them severely punished, such as being barred from public office for some time. It is only then that we can protect the integrity of the education sector, universities and the electoral system itself.