Wilson Sossion (l) with Mudzo Nzili (c) when they appeared in court agitating a pay hike for teachers. Photo/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 9 – Wilson Sossion has been elected as the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General at an Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) at the Nakuru High School.
Over 1,900 delegates met in Nakuru to endorse the pre-agreed deal that will see Sossion swap positions with Mudzo Nzili who now becomes the National Chairman.
According to a KNUT official who is attending the proceedings, the first agenda of the meeting was to fill in seven vacant positions before the delegates move on to other resolutions touching on teachers’ welfare.
“The mood of the meeting is not as fiery as expected. Both of them are now going about their new roles and conducting the business of the ADC smoothly. There are other things to discuss and they are focusing on this,” he stated.
He said that the conference was also expected to fill in other slots including the Deputy Secretary General position, which has attracted two candidates from Nyanza – Clement Omolo from Siaya and Charles Katege from Migori.
The conference also discussed the union’s position on the failure by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to promote teachers.
The ADC doubles as a by-election to fill the secretary general position, left vacant after the death of Okuta Osiany early this year, ahead of the union’s general elections in 2016.
Sossion and Nzili agreed to swap positions after almost two months of intensive campaigns for votes from teachers as the national chair had declared interest in the position held by Nzili on interim basis.
Nzili had earlier vowed not to step down for Sossion saying that union members had resolved that he should be the automatic successor to Okuta, and maintained that he would seek the endorsement of the delegates during elections.
Sossion successfully swayed the union to abandon an old Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that reserved the SG post to Coast and Nyanza and the chair to Rift Valley and Central by having Nzili take over from him at the chairmanship.
Sossion will go down history not only as the man who tilted the MoU but also the first secondary school teacher to occupy the coveted position.
The position has been a preserve of primary school teachers owing to their numbers a notion blamed largely for the formation of the rival Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers.
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