A cheering crowd escorts a school bus carrying Butere Girls from Melvin Jones Academy in Nakuru on April 10, 2025. The girls declined to perform their play, 'Echoes of War', instead opting to sing the national anthem during the ongoing National Drama and Film Festival.
The chairman of the Kenya National Drama and Film Festival, Prof Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, has denied that there is an attempt to censor the content of items presented by schools on stage during this year’s festivals at Kagumo Teachers Training College, Nyeri County.
Prof Odhiambo, when shown a provision in this year’s rulebook that prohibits political propaganda and ridicule of public officials, said: “It [the provision] was there but not explicit. The legal team made it more explicit.”
On Tuesday, the Nation reported on the new clause that has been inserted in the rulebook. However, in an interview with Nation, Prof Odhiambo said there is no official stand on political messaging, only noting that learners below the tertiary level of education should have little to do with agitation propaganda, which is shortened as ‘agitprop’. He made the remark when asked whether a play that referred to Singapore had been denied a chance to head to the nationals.
“Adjudication is not about awards; it is about the totality of the performance. So, there are performances that are just bad. You know, in the drama festival, we don't do agitprop; that is agitation propaganda. I do agitprop with the university students because they understand how it works and it is meant for something. But you realise that we use slogans out of context,” he said.
“So if somebody has a script that talks about Singapore, we can't stop him because maybe he is using Singapore in a very metaphorical way. But if he just throws it there, it is not maybe what made the play fail. Maybe the play was just aesthetically weak. But what people want to do is look for something to show that we are banning,” added Prof Odhiambo. “I can tell you that we have not banned any performance because they said 'Singapore' or they said or danced to 'Kasongo.'”
A crowd escort a school bus ferrying Butere Girls’ students from Melvin Jones Academy in Nakuru on April 10, 2025. The learners refused to perform the ‘Echoes of War’ play in the ongoing National Drama and Film Festivals.
The Nation understands that after the principal of Butere Girls faced administrative action last year over the “Echoes of War” controversy, most school heads have been pussy footing on the issue of scripts.
“A lot of principals and even education officers have become extremely paranoid. People fear for their jobs after last year's events,” a person in the know intimated to us.
Prof Odhiambo, who personally briefed this year’s adjudicators, said the focus is on good art. That is why, he said, agitation propaganda may not work for younger learners.
“What are Form One or Grade 10 students doing with agitprop? The university students are doing their thing. They have poetic licence. But these [young] people, we are training them how to do good art. So, I can confirm to you that we have not banned any item. I cannot do that,” said Prof Odhiambo.
“From where I stand, so long as you do a good play that is political but is allegorical, we have no problem with that,” he added.
He noted that there are issues like defamation and disparaging of others that were addressed in this year’s rulebook.
“We don't want to be involved in defamation, because sometimes people come on stage and they bring in things that were not in the script. And it becomes very difficult for us when they disparage [others],” said Prof Odhiambo.
“Some of the people that write these plays for our learners are not even familiar with [the rules]. So, they just say things that embarrass people and cause tension for no reason. But we have no problem if somebody does a play that is critical,” he added.
He went on: “We are not banning anyone because one thing that we've realised is that a performance is a spontaneous thing. So, even if you put it on the rulebook, when somebody's on stage, they can say whatever they want to say.”
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