How Malala's 2018 play predicted Utumishi fire tragedy

The dormitory at Utumishi Girls Academy in Gilgil, Nakuru county that was gutted by fire at night. [Julius Chepkwony, Standard]

In a haunting twist of life imitating art, the tragic fire at Utumishi Girls Academy bears an uncanny resemblance to a fictional play dubbed 'It Is Well', which many may have watched, applauded and dismissed as mere theatre, but might have predicted the latest fire tragedy.

In the play, which was staged by Butere Girls High School in 2018 and emerged as the overall winner at the Western Region Drama Festival, fire consumes Rece Memorial Academy, a fictional school named after the elite police unit and attended largely by children of security officers.

Years later, reality has delivered tragedy with striking echoes. Utumishi Girls Academy, a police-linked school that educates many daughters of officers serving in the National Police Service, has been plunged into national mourning following a devastating fire.

The parallels are difficult to ignore- a girls’ institution, children from law enforcement families, an alleged act of arson at the centre of the disaster, and a fire that has exposed uncomfortable questions about safety, supervision and institutional responsibility.

In both the fictional play and the real-life tragedy, the inferno is not treated as a simple accident. It is linked to the school’s own daughters, setting in motion a painful tale of loss, grief, blame and accountability.

The play was written by former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala, who says the renewed attention on the play is painful, especially because the issues raised in the play eight years ago appear to have resurfaced in real life.

Malala began by sending condolences to the families of the students who lost their lives at Utumishi Girls Academy and wished a quick recovery to those still receiving treatment.

“As you all know, theatre is a mirror of society. We use it as a channel to express what we see in society,” Malala said.

He said his work as a playwright is not only driven by current events, but also by what he describes as an attempt to read the direction society is taking.

“When I do plays, my theory of conceptualising an idea is not reactive to what is happening in society, but a prophetic analysis. I think futuristic,” he said.

Malala said 'It Is Well' was inspired by the political climate that followed the 2017 General Election, when protests, resistance movements and public confrontations became part of national life.

“It Is Well was triggered by the protests of 2017. We had the Unga revolution, resistance and many protests just after the 2017 elections, and we saw many children taking part in the protests,” he said.

Butere Girls School students present their play 'It is well' during the Western Region drama festivals at Chavakali High School in Vihiga County. [File, Standard]

According to him, children often reproduce what they see adults doing in society, including how they handle conflict.

“Children can duplicate how adults do things and would want to resolve conflict the way their parents do at home,” Malala said.

In the play, the fire does not begin with an open plan to burn down the school. It begins with exclusion, humiliation and punishment. A new student, who is considered an outsider because she is not the daughter of a police officer, becomes the target of hostility from other girls in the dormitory.

The students reject her presence with cruelty.

“It is now resolved, we are not going to share the dormitory, no same bathroom, no same toilet and not even the same oxygen,” they say in unison.

The hostility quickly turns physical. Alexa, one of the dominant girls, orders the others to remove the new student from the dormitory.

“Pack her filthy belongings and throw them out of the dormitory,” Alexa says.

Immediately, the girls act in unison, drag the new student out and lock her outside.

What follows is one of the play’s most chilling turns.

“Girls, look, she is very comfortable out there. We need to switch off the security light,” one girl shouts.

“Yes, so that she can stay in darkness,” another girl responds.

The plan then shifts from intimidation to danger. One of the girls suggests removing the fuse from the main switch to cut off the security light.

“Remove the fuse from the main switch,” one of the girls says.

Alexa walks towards the switch. Another girl warns her against it.

“Alexa, don’t do it. It is very dangerous,” she shouts.

But Alexa refuses to listen.

“This mission is not for the faint-hearted. Move!” Alexa says, pushing the girls away as she rushes to remove the fuse from the main switch.

Seconds later, the punishment meant for the new student turns into a disaster. Alexa is electrocuted. The girls panic. In the confusion, they begin shouting and looking for a way out.

“Who has the keys?” “Fire!”

The girls scamper in every direction. The doors are closed. The grills trap them inside. The fire starts, grows and quickly overwhelms the dormitory.

“Somebody help us! We are dying!” they scream amid chaos.
Helplessly, the girls try to escape through the grills, but in vain. All doors are closed. The dormitory becomes a trap.

The fire grows too huge to contain. Officers arrive at the scene, but they are overwhelmed. There is no water to extinguish the flames. The uniforms, command and authority all appear powerless before the roaring fire. The institution meant to protect the children of officers is suddenly exposed as helpless, unprepared and unable to save them.

A distressed parent wails as government officials led by Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen,  make their way into Utumishi Girls High School where a night fire killed 16 students on May 28, 2026. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Malala said the school setting was deliberate. Rece Memorial Academy was created as a school for police officers’ children because such an environment would ordinarily be expected to uphold high discipline.

“When asked why a police officer’s children’s school, Rece Memorial Academy, I expected to have a high level of discipline, and I knew there would be cases of indiscipline. The concept itself is in conflict. It is like having a protest in a church,” he said.

“We set a play in an environment where we have a high level of discipline, but we contaminated that environment with a lot of indiscipline.”

The principal, Madam Rachael, later confirms the rescue effort in the play.

“With the help of the rescue team, we managed to salvage all the girls except Alexa,” the principal says.

A sorrowful song follows. Students weep. The stage shifts from panic to grief.

But before the school can fully absorb the tragedy, the search for blame begins. An inspector, who is also Alexa’s uncle, confronts the principal.

“Tell me clearly, who is responsible for this?” he demands.

Before she can answer, two girls quickly point fingers.

“It is Rhoda,” they say.

Rhoda is later arrested by police, and the scene shows her devastated mother, introducing another layer of pain not only the fire itself, but also the question of blame, truth and whether the weakest are made to carry responsibility for failures created by many.

That fictional scene now carries painful echoes after the Utumishi Girls tragedy, where a dormitory fire left 16 students dead and dozens injured, sending shockwaves across the country and leaving families searching for answers.

Police later arrested eight students on suspicion of arson. Authorities also raised questions over safety lapses, including reports that an exit door was locked during the panic.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba also said two teachers were aware that students were allegedly “planning something” but failed to take appropriate action.

Malala said the failure of adults to act on early signs of conflict is one of the clearest links between the play and the Utumishi tragedy.

“We have negligence. Despite the adults in the play having already been signalled that there was potential conflict between these two students, Mr Ayaya, the teacher, and the principal knew there was a conflict. The police officers manning the gate knew there was a conflict, and they did nothing,” he said.

"The conflict grew and mutated into something uncontrollable. The same thing happened to Utumishi Girls High School, where teachers had a glimpse of an emerging conflict but ignored it until such a time when we had 16 young souls lying in the mortuary. That is when they pretend to be taking steps.”

Malala, however, believes the play carried warnings that should have been taken more seriously by school managers and education officials.

“It is quite unfortunate that I saw this exact occurrence eight years ago, yet nobody appreciated that it is content that can change society. They just looked at it as a piece of art for competition,” he said.

Malala said the play also raised issues around dormitory design, locked doors, grills and school safety long before the Utumishi fire.

“You see, eight years ago, we had even identified problems with grilled windows. If we had windows without grills, we would have saved those girls in the play. If we could have changed the policy of dormitories being under lock and key, with a matron as well, we would have saved lives,” he said.

The renewed attention on the play comes against a wider debate over the place of art in Kenya’s public life. In the recent past, government and security agencies have been accused of attempting to censor artistic works that confront power too directly.

Butere Girls’ later play, Echoes of War, became the subject of national controversy after its staging at the drama festivals was disrupted, sparking debate over freedom of expression, student theatre and the state’s discomfort with critical art.