By Ogova Ondego
Published April 27, 2023
Prof Stephen EJL Talitwala (August 28, 1940 — April 10, 2023), who presided over the affairs of Daystar University for 25 years as Executive Director of Daystar Communications (1979 -1984), founding Principal of Daystar University College (1984 – 1994), and First Vice-Chancellor of Daystar University (1994 – 2004), has died and his remains been laid to rest at Daystar University’s main Campus, Athi River in Machakos County, on April 24, 2023. OGOVA ONDEGO pays tribute to the departed don through this interview carried out in 1995.
RELATED:Kenyan Universities Call for ‘Decent’ Dressing and Grooming
It is 6:30 PM. Even though it is already past working hours for most corporate executives on Friday, he is still working wholeheartedly in his office as if his entire life depends on his work. He smiles as he opens the door for you, bowing in the Oriental style. He offers you a seat before inviting you to a steaming cup of tea, saying, “Self Service!”
He may not be as well known as his counterparts in public University or even as famous as Daystar University, Kenya’s first international and inter-denominational Christian institution of higher learning that has just been granted a license to award her own degree certification, that he presides over. But Professor Stephen Erisa Joseph Lubale Talitwala, the founding Vice-Chancellor of Daystar, appears to have carved himself a niche in University administration in Kenya that has four public and three private institutions awarding degrees to students. Easy-going, open and down-to-earth, Talitwala is the leading spirit behind Daystar.
RELATED:Kenya Music Sector Captains Go On Study Tour of South Africa
Talitwala says he first got involved with Daystar Communications, the precursor Of Daystar University, in 1976.
“I immediately identified with their noble vision and goals and started praying and contributing financially to it,” he says.
He says he was invited to join the Board of Directors of Daystar Communications in 1977. A year later, the Board decided to start a Christian University. They looked for a Christian don to lead the now Daystar University College as Principal but when they failed to get any one to warm up to the idea, Talitwala says, “I was asked to step in, being the only don on the Board.”
He explains that at that time Daystar did not have any funds on which to start and that this could have been one of the reasons why no one was willing to take up the challenge of serving as Principal.
“One had to take a step of faith in taking up the appointment as at times Daystar could not even pay her own bills,” says Talitwala.
Talitwala, a man with a rare trait of humility, trusted God and took the appointment. Today, Daystar is arguably the fastest growing private University in East Africa’s largest economy, attracting students from as far afield as United States of America, Nigeria, Ghana, Congo-Kinshasa, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania besides Kenya. Starting with only 20 students in the Bachelor’s programme in 1982, Daystar’s student population now stands at 1220 and her Undergraduate programmes have been relocated from the cramped 1.5 acre plot in Nairobi to a spacious 300-acre land in Machakos on the eastern outskirts of Nairobi. The original Nairobi Campus has now been left to her post-graduate, continuing education and extension programmes.
Talitwala attributes this growth to determination, hard work and prayer. In fact, he says, it has taken God for Daystar to get her Charter from the Government of Kenya.
“For a University to be licensed,” Talitwala says, “it must have at least 50 acres of land for every 500 students enrolled”
To meet this condition Daystar embarked on the search for land. Just when they were about to despair, Talitwala says, they saw a newspaper advert for a 300-acre land on sale in MachakosDistrict.
RELATED: Eastern Africa Cultural Journalism Mentorship Programme Comes of Age
“Although the Kenya Board of Daystar accepted the find as God’s gift, the US Board of Daystar was not as enthusiastic, arguing against taking the college from Nairobi into the bush in the middle of nowhere. However they eventually warmed up to the idea and bought the land. The groundbreaking ceremony was done on May 4, 1991 and today Athi River Campus is the hub of Daystar University.”
The other obstacles which Daystar had to overcome being granted a University Charter were demands that she opens her admission to non-Christian students besides reducing the number of Theology and Bible courses in her curriculum. These two demands, Talitwala says, were a big test to Daystar’s goals and rather than change mission and objectives, Daystar said No to the Commission for Higher Education, the agency that is in charge of University Education in Kenya. However after some protracted negotiations Daystar was accredited when none other than President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi himself handed the Charter to Daystar Board Chair James Kamunge and Talitwala on Athi River Campus on September 29, 1994.
RELATED:Unsettling Silence from Kenya’s Political Hothouse
To many, a mechanical engineer heading a liberal arts University is a different kettle of fish. But not to Prof Talitwala who says everything is possible when God is involved. He however admits to reading both extensively and intensively in management and administration issues. Through the ‘Servant-Leadership’ principle he has popularised at Daystar, the institution has been spared the hiccups of student unrest common in public institutions of higher learning in Kenya.
Talitwala says another principle that has proved invaluable to him is the ability to delegate duties to those who may be more gifted than he in certain areas. He however hastens to add that engineers should be the best managers and administrators as they are taught to think critically, taking the best available options.
The bespectacled VC says “apologizing to students when you are wrong does not cost much but has great value as it diffuses tension and saves Daystar nasty incidents.”
Talitwala’s rise to the top has not been easy. But then he does not lead Daystar because it is easy. He says he leads because he loves Daystar. But if there is anything wrong with his leadership it is in his ‘prayerfulness’. This has not escaped the notice of his detractors who accuse him of ‘spending too much time praying instead of taking fast and decisive action whenever there is a crisis at Daystar’.
But the VC disagrees, saying, “Demands made by students should be addressed while they are still fresh to avoid ugly scenes. This should be done with great wisdom in recognition that students are young and may at times make irrational demands without meaning harm.”
Terming authoritarianism as ‘subversion of leadership’, Talitwala says “University should be governed not by the rod but through negotiation”.
RELATED: Are Urban East African Women Taking to Exhibitionism?
He is of the opinion that staff “should not be forced into implementing any decision they have not participated in making in order to prevent ill-feelings, resentment and sabotage. Instead float the idea to them and let them discuss it freely before any decision can be reached.”
On suggestion that some buildings at Daystar be named after him out of recognition of the role he is playing in the institution, the evangelical former Church Elder who retired from Nairobi Baptist Church on Ngong Road in 1994 says that isn’t biblical as it will shift the glory from God to him, a mere vessel through whom God is working.
“The greatest honour to me will be if Daystar will continue to serve Africa and the Church with the same vision long after my departure, not structures being named after me.”
On 30 September 1995 Talitwala, who is described as a man with a burden and a vision for Daystar embarked on a 500km walk from the Indian Ocean coastal city of Mombasa to Nairobi in the hope of raising Sh30 Million for construction of a 150-bed hostel for female students at Athi River Campus. The walk, that he completed on September 16 earned Talitwala the Guinness Stout Effort Award for September 1995.
RELATED: Read This Book If You Want to Avoid the Pitfalls of Midlife Crisis!
Talitwala starts his day at 6:00 AM and ends it at 11:00 PM. The principle of hard work, he says, was inculcated in him by his father, Yessero Talitwala, during his childhood back in Magamaga Village in Jinja district of Uganda.
It is not uncommon to find this 55-year-old don in his office at 7:00 AM. He usually leaves the office after 6:00 PM but does not get home till after 8:00 PM on most occasions.
“If I happen to get home at &:00 the children are bound to ask me, ‘What has gone wrong, Dad?’ says this humorous father of three with his trademark short laugh.
Talitwala is a self-effacing, modest and almost shy individual who says he keeps fit by jogging and repairing his house and motor vehicle. In fact during my interview with him during this evening in 1995 he takes the pain to repeatedly request, if not implore, me not to ‘hype me up too much in the media’ saying, “I am just a simple and ordinary Kenyan.”
RELATED: Athletes Battle Water, Grass, Gravel, Trees and Heat for Honours
Talitwala first came to Kenya in 1961 as a student at the then Royal Technical College Nairobi that would later be renamed University of Nairobi. He graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and joined the then East African Airways till 1967 when he left for further studies at Leeds University in Britain.
Upon his return he worked as a Lecturer at University of Nairobi (October 1971 – September 1972) and Makerere University (1972 – 1975).He fled Uganda in 1975 when it looked clear that the then Ugandan strongman, Idi Amin, who could hardly stand intellectuals was fast closing in on him. He returned to UoN until 1979 when he joined Daystar.
A member of the Institute of Engineers of Kenya, Talitwala has served Kenya Institute of Education as Chair of the Technical Education Committee and on Kenya Bureau of Standards’ Steel Committee. He has also worked as an engineering consultant in Kenya, Germany and United Kingdom.
The Ugandan-born Kenyan is married to Elizabeth Nthenya, a nurse currently pursuing a Master’s degree studies in Counseling Psychology. Two of their children—first born Ruth Tibaga and second born Joseph Talitwala—are studying Communication and Commerce, respectively, at Daystar. Hannah Kyesubire, the last born, is studying Hair Dressing at Pivot Point in Nairobi.
