Why Kenya, an angry nation is sliding towards self-destruction

Protestors at Moi Avenue during the anniversary of June 2024 protests on June 25, 2025. [Kanyiri Wahito, Standard]

The nation is angry. There is palpable anger everywhere, from the streets where irresistible youth are demanding for good governance and opportunities, to churches, homes and all other public spaces.

Never before in Kenya’s independent history has the country witnessed the outpouring of anger it is seeing now, and probably, since President William Ruto came to power in 2022.

It is now that leaders are being accused of hiring goons to attack fellow citizens.

Human rights groups claim that over 200 people have been killed and multiple times more seriously injured in clashes between protestors and police officers in just over two and a half years.

Not even during the fight for multi-party democracy and Saba Saba riots in the 1990s, when young people led by opposition politicians, fought fierce battles with anti-riot police were such astonishing numbers of casualties witnessed.

The challenge today is that the government and police are dealing with an extremely conscious, very informed and daring protestors. Their numbers are overwhelming and yet they are also seriously deprived of opportunities.

To deal with them, the government and the ruling elite have decided to use extra-judicial means like abductions, shoot to kill orders and violence. It, however, appears the guns and bullets are not going to be the solution to dealing with these dare-devil youths.

Peter Kagwanja, The Africa Policy Institute president, argues that the government will not achieve much by applying criminal violence against its people, because dictatorships across the world have always failed to suppress people-led protests.

“Dictatorships have never succeeded anywhere in the world because people keep fighting to emancipate themselves as they seek to restore order, justice and common decency,” says Prof Kagwanja.

And so, with Kenya is at cross roads, the country is at a place where its leadership should move quickly to restore order by listening to what the angry protestors are demanding.  Failure to do that, they may go down in history as the regime that oversaw Kenya spiral into an ugly confrontation.

PLO Lumumba, one of the main architects of the 2010 Constitution, also notes that the country is moving in the wrong direction by deliberately turning a deaf ear to the cry and agony of young people.

“Our country is between the hammer and the anvil. We are in a bad place. This is perhaps the worst I have seen since the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. For the first time in the history of this country, we are consistently moving in the wrong direction,” says Prof Lumumba.

Martin Shikuku addresses the crowd at Kamukunji with James Orengo during the first Saba Saba rally in July 7, 1990. [File, Standard]

Lumumba says he regrets that the 2010 Constitution, on which so much hope was placed, has not helped to reform institutions like the police that had been expected to change from being a “force to a service” to promote the rule of law.

The former Kenya School of Law Dean is further worried by the impunity that is happening, including the horrific incidents of people being picked out of their homes to be murdered or tortured and excesses hitting an unprecedented level.

Last year, young people protested against government largesse, pomposity and display of wealth, including dishing out money at harambees that are now back being presided over by President Ruto’s men at an alarming rate.

The President reneged on the promises he made after last year’s Gen Z protests, including stopping the bad habits of people displaying arrogance and filthy wealth.

Dr Ruto also promised to cut government spending but has since hired more than 20 advisors. Nothing has changed and the population is still very angry but the political class doesn’t appear to be worried.

Early this week, Lumumba told KTN that last week’s Gen Z protests in Kenya received headline treatment in about 110 countries around the world. That should scare investors seeking to come to Kenya.

The anger is rising in the country. Blood is being spilt in towns and villages across the country almost on daily basis, as police officers get orders to shoot and kill young demonstrating Kenyans on sight from those given power to protect the people.

Fred Ogola, a professor at a local university, contends that the system can only recover through involving all stakeholders in an honest discussion and prioritizing the future of young people.

“Let us prioritize their future through people-centred policies so that we can also mentor, create jobs and provide a more friendly environment. We should also stop opulence and uphold the rule of law,” says Prof Ogola.

It is also worrying that Kenyans are quickly losing trust in oversight institution created by the 2010 constitution like Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, Independent Police Oversight Authority, National Police Service and the National Police Service Commission, among others.

Ogola thinks it is systematic failures in these institutions that is creating confusion largely because of interference from the Executive and other power brokers operating within a broken leadership system.

Former Law Society of Kenya President Eric Theuri also argues that Kenyans are angered by what is happening in places like police stations where their safety is supposed to be guaranteed.

Protesters hang on KBS bus during the Saba Saba demonstrations in Nairobi on July 7, 1990. [File, Standard]

Today, a suspect taken to Central Police Station in Nairobi, for example, can only be presumed to be safe when he or she leaves those premises alive. A phone call to a loved one cannot guarantee that they are out of danger.

Theuri says the mood in the country is bad because the government appears to be at war with its people, which in itself is a recipe for chaos. That has now created a resistance that is generic.

“It is time the President admits that the sword he has is for protecting people and not for harming them. They are taking this country on a path that we may not recover from,” warns Theuri.

Unfortunately, leaders cannot be taken seriously over what they say and that includes the President himself because so many promises remain unfulfilled, That is why the young people, comprising about 80 per cent of the population, are getting more agitated.

The government does not also understand it is dealing with a tech-savvy age group that is very conscious of everything around them, including how to behave and assist each other when they are protesting on the streets.

Theuri says the blame game can go on and on but the buck stops at the President’s door step, who still has an opportunity to fix the country after throwing away several chances since last year.

Political analysts also argue that the country has continuously ignored issues that arose after the 2007 post election violence through the Agenda Four of the 2008 National Accord that was chaired by the late United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The elements that formed Agenda Four included constitutional, institutional and legal reforms, land reforms, poverty, inequality and unemployment. These are the same issues that young people are protesting over.

The quality of education is also down but, unfortunately, becoming unaffordable. Industrial growth and manufacturing are at an all-time low. Value addition in agriculture also still remains a pipe dream since the country’s independence.

Former Kitui governor Charity Ngilu says factory chimneys in Nairobi’s Industrial Area ceased producing smoke because most of them closed and Kenyans lost thousands of jobs yet nobody seems to care. Cotton ginneries in Western Kenya and other parts of the country also closed.

In the backdrop of all that, demands by young people that they should be listened to are met with a narrative in government that they must be brought under control, either through force or that parents and the church should teach them how to behave.

Meanwhile, the youth want accountability, quality affordable education and healthcare but not abductions. When the President apologized to the country two months ago, many youth, through their social media accounts, asked for action and not mere words.

 “We expected it to be followed by a structured national reconciliation, justice for all those killed, reparations and opportunities but not the continued misplaced priorities we are seeing,” said one protestor on X.