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Magoha is gone. The news was a shocker and it hit headlines hard. All over social media and mainstream media people are still trying to come to terms with the news. Nobody saw it coming. When Magoha worked under former President Uhuru’s government as the Cabinet Secretary for Health, he always looked as the bastion of health.
Not only that he is a professor of surgery. The last person you’d expect to leave earth so suddenly and so soon was the man who was always in well-ironed suits. His ties were mostly accentuated by matching pocket squares. He was always on the move causing jitters in schools.
Credit to him, he navigated the ministry of education when Covid hit. This was the first time a pandemic of this proportion hit schools such that they had to be closed for more than a year. Nationwide strikes by students and the burning of schools were child’s play compared to the global pandemic.
However Magoha never stopped, he kept on moving. Every day he was in a different corner of the country and in a different school. One thing that Kenyans will always remember about him is his straight shooting, no non-sense speeches. He never polished his words for the media. The late urologist said it as it is to whoever needed to hear it the context and surrounding notwithstanding.
He once rebuked a headteacher in front of the media and fired different officials publicly. When he was appointed CS by Uhuru he said that he was surprised to go to Elimu House and find chairs swinging to the wind at 8 am since no one occupied them.
Professor George Magoha also led the education industry into the new world of the competency-based curriculum. There was a lot of confusion, and still, there is. But in classic George fashion, he never sees any barrier. He oversaw the building of thousands of new classes, inspected new school infrastructure to accommodate the Covid reality and always made the reading of KCPE/KCSE results interesting.
To the no non-sense, proud, God-fearing Professor. Rest in Peace. Your legacy lives on.
