Transport along Thika Road has been disrupted after protests erupted near Kenyatta University in the Kahawa area.
According to the students, the cause of the demonstrations was due to lack of electricity for a week in the learning institution.
The students issued an ultimatum to the relevant authorities over the restoration of electricity.
“We are here in this place because of the electricity issues. We have stayed in KM place where most of our comrades reside for one week without electricity. We are telling the relevant stakeholders to restore the power in the next 30 minutes. Failure to which our work is always injecting. We will close Thika Road,” noted Glen Karani, the President of KU.
Ku students block roads along Thika road due to lack of electricity. Photo: Courtesy.
The KU president also noted that despite reaching out to the relevant authority, there was no progress in restoring power to the university.
“We reached out to the regional manager. We wrote a letter requesting that power be restored. Up to now they have not restored power. What they are doing is taking our transformer to another place which we are not going to allow,” he stated.
The power blackout according to the students has brought many challenges such as insecurity and business losses to businesses operating within the campus.
They noted that assurances from area leadership that power would be restored have not been met.
Moreover, the students have warned of another demonstration over the new university funding model in the coming week as they stressed for their needs to be addressed.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. The next thing we are going to do, next week, is the new funding model. We are going to block this road again so that the government can listen to our pleas,” Karani added.
