28 Days on the Street, Then a Handshake: We're Going to be Punished for the Time We Lost.
By Njeri Mickeydan Kioko
I'll be honest—when the lecturers went on strike on October 2, I didn't think it would last this long. I've seen this movie before. The 2025 strike dragged on for 49 days before the government blinked. So when UASU issued their seven-day notice in late September, a lot of us just sighed and thought, "Here we go again."
But this time felt different. The government's first offer was almost insulting. Sh9.76 billion for a four-year CBA? When the previous two-year deal already cost Sh9.7 billion? Even I could do that math, and I'm not a lecturer. University Academic Staff Union (UASU) Secretary-General Constantine Wesonga put it plainly: "We cannot imagine a CBA for four years can also consume Sh9.7 billion." Fair point.
So on October 2, they downed tools. And for 28 days, public universities went quiet.
Week one was mostly shock. Students had just settled in; first-years especially, barely a month into campus life; and suddenly classes were cancelled. The government's response was slow. Education CS Julius Ogamba kept saying they were "working with Treasury" to improve the offer, but nothing concrete came.
Week two is when things got real. On October 12, the government tabled Sh12 billion. The unions rejected it outright. Dr. Wesonga called it "awfully inadequate." That same week, UASU announced a peaceful procession to Parliament and Treasury offices, a clear signal they weren't backing down. I remember seeing the photos from that march on October 15. Lecturers, some of them grey-haired professors, carrying placards outside Parliament. It was dignified but angry.
Week three was the messy one. Students at the University of Nairobi blocked Waiyaki Way, lighting bonfires and demanding the government sort itself out. Chuka University student leaders were not left behind as some of them called press conferences demanding the government and the lecturers to do something about the strike. I get their frustration. They were paying rent, eating through their upkeep, watching the semester evaporate. But here's the thing that really annoyed me: an old video from the 2025 strike started circulating on TikTok and Facebook, claiming the 2026 strike was over. Africa Check had to debunk it. Misinformation during a crisis is just cruel.
Week four was the breaking point. On October 26, the government came back with Sh11.96 billion, actually lower than the earlier Sh12 billion offer. Wesonga was visibly frustrated: "What happened to the Sh12 billion they tabled two weeks ago?" The unions vowed to intensify. I thought we were heading for another 49-day marathon.
Then, Wednesday night, everything changed.
Here's what I've pieced together from the reports. On October 28, there was a meeting at State House convened by Head of Public Service Felix Koskei. Ogamba was there, Treasury CS John Mbadi, PS Chris Kiptoo, and the union team. But the real action happened in a Nairobi hotel, where negotiations stretched for three tense hours. The government raised its offer incrementally; Sh12 billion, then Sh14 billion, then Sh16 billion; before finally landing on Sh20 billion.
Wesonga's announcement that night was almost anti-climactic in its simplicity: "We have a deal on financials." But the words he chose mattered. "Today we have agreed on a figure we have negotiated with the government, not a figure imposed on the union." That distinction, negotiated versus imposed, is everything. It's the difference between a settlement and a surrender.
Let's be clear about what this deal is and isn't. The unions initially asked for Sh98 billion. They got Sh20 billion. That's not a victory in absolute terms. It's a compromise, and a significant one.
The money covers basic salaries and allowances for UASU, KUSU, and KUDHEIHA staff under the 2025-2029 CBA. But here's what it doesn't solve: the Sh7.9 billion in salary arrears from the old 2021-2025 CBA is still hanging. Medical cover wasn't explicitly addressed. The unions have asked Parliament's Education Committee to intervene on the arrears.
So when lecturers return to class, they'll be doing so with a deal that's better than what was on the table but incomplete. Wesonga knows this. That's why he said the union would "closely monitor implementation." We've heard that before. The 2025 return-to-work formula was signed, and here we are again.
For the shopkeepers, food vendors, and landlords around campuses, the past month has been brutal. When lecturers went on strike on October 2, the economy of the campus went with them. Students who live off-campus kept paying rent, but they stopped buying the small things: the mandazi, the photocopies, the late-night snacks. The boda guys who ferry students to the gate sat idle.
Now, the floodgates are opening. The first-years who barely got a taste of campus life before the strike are finally arriving properly. Finalists who were panicking about missing marks and graduation clearance are back queuing outside departmental offices. The small businesses that survived the month are bracing for a rush they haven't seen since the semester started.
But here's the thing: a rush isn't the same as a recovery. The four weeks are gone. Landlords won't refund the rent that accrued while students sat idle. The money spent on upkeep: food, transport, the endless small expenses of staying alive near a university—is sunk. Parents who budgeted for a semester have already stretched themselves thin. The campus economy is back, but it's starting from behind.
I sat with a third-year student at the University of Nairobi on Monday, and she summed it up in one sentence: "They're going to punish us for the time they lost."
She's not wrong. The agreement that ended the strike explicitly includes a commitment to "establish a viable plan for recovering any teaching and learning time lost."
Translation: those four weeks are going to be compressed into the remaining weeks of the semester.
What that looks like in practice is not pretty. University calendars were already tight before October. Now, administrators are staring at a brutal choice: extend lecture hours, push CATs into the Christmas period, push final exams on January, or all three. For finalists, the anxiety is sharper. Graduation dates that were already uncertain are now genuinely up in the air. Missing marks, clearance forms, departmental signatures; all of it was frozen for a month, and now everyone needs it done at once.
The Star reported that university managements are facing "the challenge of recovering the lost academic time without further disrupting research, examination and graduation schedules as the year draws to a close." That's the polite way of saying: something is going to get squeezed, and it's probably going to be the students.
Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: if the recovery plan involves extending the semester, Christmas is in trouble.
For students who live far from campus, that means a shorter break. For those in exam-heavy courses, it means revision over the holidays. For finalists, it means waiting even longer for a certificate they need to start job hunting. One student told me he had already cancelled his plans to travel home in December. "What's the point?" he said. "I'll be in the library."
The irony is bitter. The strike was about money and dignity for lecturers; and by the end, the deal was a compromise, a Sh20 billion package that fell far short of what the union originally demanded. The lecturers got something, but not everything. The students got nothing except a compressed semester and a bill for rent they paid while learning nothing.
I don't want to sound entirely cynical. There is genuine relief on campus. The lecturers are back. The halls are open. The strike is over, at least for now. Wesonga told his members to "prepare to go to class" and promised that "from Monday, the lecture halls will be flowing with lecturers." That happened.
KUSU's Charles Mukhwaya actually apologized to students: "We are sorry for the disruption." That was decent of him. But an apology doesn't give back the weeks lost.
The lecturers, for their part, seem relieved but cautious. One union official told members to "go to church thanking God" on Friday before returning to work Monday. That mix of gratitude and wariness feels right. They won a better deal. But the underlying problem, a government that negotiates under duress rather than in good faith, hasn't gone away.
Ogamba, to his credit, seems to have taken personal ownership of this. Wesonga called him "a man of his word." I hope that's true. Because if the Treasury doesn't release the funds, if the Sh20 billion becomes another promise that evaporates, we'll be back here in a few months. And next time, the students might not be so patient.
For now, though, the businesses are open, the queues are back, and the photocopiers are humming. But the clock is ticking louder than usual. The semester is shorter. The pressure is higher. And everyone; students, lecturers, the guy selling chapati at the gate; is wondering whether this truce will hold until the end of the year, or whether we're just counting down to the next disruption.
There's a deal. There's a handshake. And the lecture halls are open again. That's something. But the deal just doesn't feel settled yet.
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