You can't stop quest for genuine reforms by outlawing creativity

Karima Girls delivered a powerful performance of their play titled ‘Wall of Jericho’ on April 12, 2025, at Melvin Jones Academy during the sixth day of the Kenya National Drama and Film Festivals. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Kipchumba Murkomen was not yet born in 1977, when the Jomo Kenyatta regime detained Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. He had dramatised his play titled ‘Ngahika Ndeenda’. And CS Murkomen was less than three years old when, in 1982, the Kanu government banned the performance of Muntu, by Joe de Graft.  

President William Ruto was certainly around in 1977, an 11-year old stripling, in primary school, somewhere in his village. And although the government had recently jailed his MP, the charismatic Chelagat Mutai, over trumped up charges of “incitement,” he probably could not join the dots.