What began as a smouldering dormitory fire on a Sunday evening has pushed one of Kenya’s most prestigious schools to the edge of total shutdown — and landed twelve teenagers in police custody facing arson charges.
Maranda High School in Siaya County is in crisis after Form Three students allegedly torched the three-storey Owino “B” dormitory on Sunday, May 24, destroying personal property worth thousands of shillings belonging to Form Four and Grade Ten students. By Monday afternoon, both Form Three and Form Four cohorts had been sent home indefinitely, with the school administration weighing whether to also dismiss Grade 10 students — a move that would effectively shut the institution down.
According to police, the attack was no spontaneous act of rage. It was a calculated plan set in motion a day earlier.
“On Sunday after the afternoon tea break, the six were joined by six accomplices to execute the plan,” said Bondo Sub-County Police Commandant Robert Aboki. “They spread blankets and mattresses along the corridors of the building, doused them in petrol, and set them ablaze.”
Investigators allege that during a sports event on Saturday, a group of students pooled together Ksh 2,500, slipped out of the school compound in civilian clothes, and purchased eight litres of petrol from shops in Bondo town. They reportedly smuggled the fuel back into school through a fence and concealed the jerrycan in a dustbin, waiting for the right moment.
The most damning evidence came from CCTV footage. Detectives recovered recordings from two petrol stations in Bondo town allegedly showing six of the detained students making the purchase. The attackers also wore hoods and masks during the assault — but investigators later recovered the discarded disguises in school toilets where the suspects had attempted to hide.
Twelve students were arrested while trying to flee the scene and spent Sunday night at Bondo Police Station. They are expected to be arraigned at the Bondo Law Courts on Tuesday to face arson-related charges, after the court granted police temporary custody to complete their investigations.
The fallout inside the school has been equally volatile. On Monday, the aggrieved Form Four candidates staged a lunchtime protest — breaking dining hall plates and throwing away their food before flatly refusing to attend afternoon classes. They circulated written notes demanding to be sent home. Principal Dr. Edwin Namachanja, acting in consultation with the Director of Education’s office, obliged.
“The difficult decision to release the candidates was made to protect lives and secure school property,” the administration stated.
The Maranda incident does not stand alone. Just days earlier, Ambira Boys’ High School in neighbouring Ugunja sub-constituency was indefinitely closed after students went on a destructive rampage, vandalising the principal’s office, laboratories, and the computer lab.
The back-to-back incidents raise urgent questions about discipline, inter-class tensions, and security gaps in Kenyan secondary schools — questions that education authorities can no longer afford to leave unanswered.
