Kenya has been immersed in widespread protests over the contentious Finance Bill 2024. Despite overwhelming support from ruling-party legislators, the President declined to sign the Bill into law.
Protesters have emphasised numerous important issues, including widespread corruption, youth unemployment, high living costs, excessive taxation, and a lack of accountability among elected leaders. These challenges have continued despite the significant economic hardships that ordinary Kenyans confront.
Meanwhile, civil servants, especially Cabinet secretaries and MPs, live lavishly, with frequent expensive vacations abroad and ostentatious shows of wealth, infuriating the public.
The Opposition and the media have been glaringly absent in addressing these concerns. Corruption thrived, and controversial Bills were signed into law with little opposition. This lack of monitoring and responsibility has cleared the ground for the Generation Z movement.
The Constitution establishes three arms of government—the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary—as well as the Fourth Estate, or the media, to maintain checks and balances. These institutions are intended to protect the rule of law, enact fair laws, and defend human rights. However, they have all failed collectively, resulting in considerable public displeasure.
The Executive has presided over corruption and poor service delivery, while the legislature has become a rubber stamp for Executive decisions. The Judiciary has also enabled the other arms to operate unfettered. The media has abandoned its watchdog role, allowing government excesses to occur.
In response, the Generation Z movement has emerged as a potent force for change. Unlike earlier movements, it is motivated by a generation that has experienced the State’s contempt for the rule of law and has suffered because of high taxes, unemployment and rights violations.
The Generation Z revolt must remain alert. State actors and their allies will stop at nothing to protect the status quo. While the Finance Bill’s withdrawal and the resignation of specific Cabinet members are important accomplishments, they are tiny gains in the larger struggle for structural change.
They must stand guard and be true to the fight if they are willing to see the long-lasting benefits, otherwise, the revolution will go down in history as one of the apolitical forces, born online but crumbled at the hands of State forces without achieving any structural changes.
However, this transformation faces serious challenges. The government, opposition, and media all have attempted and will continue to try to undermine it. Hired goons have infiltrated nonviolent protests to discredit them, and the government has falsely claimed that the movement is funded by outside powers. State agents abduct and assassinate protestors as a means of suppressing opposition.
For instance, there have been reports of protestors being abducted by government agents in broad daylight. The recent case of Macharia Gaitho, abducted at a police station, underscores the lengths to which the government will go to suppress dissent.
Protestors are killed in the streets and the accounting offices underscore these, even IPOA seems to be toothless in investigating police’s killings and use of excess force.
Another method to dampen the protests is the recent collaboration between the opposition and the government under the pretext of forming a national unity cabinet. The constitution allowed for the formation of an opposing government to put the ruling government in check.
The recent presser that brought together the head of state and the leader of opposition is just a wider scheme to discredit the protests. This partnership will incorporate opposition figures inside the administration, reducing their power to hold it accountable (Haven’t you seen a seemingly rift among opposition figures, with Raila Odinga’s fraction openly supporting a formation of “government of national Unity?” with Kalonzo, Karua, Kioni opposing this move?).
The church and international allies, including the United States, have also called for the protests to halt without addressing the fundamental causes. All these are a wider power play that are focused to ensure Kenya returns to the status quo!
Throughout history, attempts to hold governments responsible have encountered similar strategies. Kenya's fight for multi-party democracy resulted in abductions, imprisonment, and dissension among opposition figures.
Civil society actors have also been targeted, with arrests, forced disclosure of funding sources, and operational shutdowns. The latest accusations against organizations such as the Ford Foundation are part of a larger campaign to undermine and demolish the protests.
State actors are generally resistant to disruption and accountability, preferring to operate beyond the law. This is seen in the government's outright lies, such as denying abductions despite clear evidence to the contrary.
The judiciary's support of unconstitutional activities, such as the Kenya Defense Forces' deployment without parliamentary authority, exemplifies this trend (Didn’t you see them granting stay orders to an unconstitutional deployment of KDF and allowed the executive time to seek parliamentary approvals long after its gazettement?)
GenZ must recognise these threats and decide how far they are willing to press for change. They must know that they are occupying important oversight roles left vacant by the opposition, the media and the judiciary, their absence would mean a return to unconstitutional leadership.
The government, opposition, courts, and media are likely to continue their efforts to undermine the movement. The government knows they have succeeded in curtailing free speech in the media, that is why they have shifted focus to online players with substantial following.
That is why social media influencers the likes of Osama Otero, Francis Gaitho, "Crazy Nairobian" and Dr Austin Omondi, among others suffered abductions because online channels have become critical for exposing state corruption and anyone with large followings suffer kidnapping and coercion.
Similarly, the government will also try to sway them towards their side or force them to abandon ship. That’s why we kept hearing claims of betrayal among these online activists.
