Comrade Power! Student Activism and the Kenyan State, c. 1978-2002

Analysis of one of the most influential and powerful student movements in all of sub-Saharan Africa and its impact on transition in the postcolonial state. During the late-1980s, the first significant challenge to authoritarian postcolonial African regimes was initiated, with widespread popular protests sweeping across the continent on a scale not seen since the end of colonial rule decades earlier. In Kenya, as in much of the rest of Africa, university students were leading actors in struggles for democratic change. Rallying under the cry of 'Comrade Power!', they emerged as one of the most formidable and militant student movements in all of Africa, and the University of Nairobi a key space within which generations of nationally prominent political activists were politically formed. This vivid account of the political intrigue that unfolded at the University of Nairobi examines the ways in which this student movement came to shape and influence opposition politics and political change nationally, where the students' power came from, how they used that power and, finally, how and why this power dissipated so rapidly from the late-1990s. Drawing on interviews with student activists, government officials and politicians, it offers new insights into the politics of transition in postcolonial Africa.