Collage by THE REPUBLIC. Photos provided by the Author.
DISPATCH FROM KENYA
Kenya’s Season of Protests
Collage by THE REPUBLIC. Photos provided by the Author.
DISPATCH FROM KENYA
Kenya’s Season of Protests
(1) All sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be exercised only in accordance with this Constitution.
(2) The people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or through their democratically elected representatives.
—The Constitution of Kenya
On my first protest on 25 June 2024, some of the protesters who were streets ahead of me stormed through the barricades the police had set up and managed to occupy Parliament, setting fire to a section of the buildings. The report reached us through a wave of disinformation, ambulance sirens, running bursts to evade the armoured water cannon truck, live rounds fired by the police, and clouds of tear gas. My mother called me in the middle of the chaos as she’d been following the protests from the news as protesters occupied Parliament. ‘Please, please, don’t go to Parliament,’ she pleaded as she had my live location. ‘They are shooting people!’ We couldn’t speak for long, but I promised her I wouldn’t. I almost immediately reneged on this promise as my friends and I walked from Kenyatta Avenue to Cardinal Otunga Street near Parliament Road, where we stopped because of sounds of gunfire.
I’d never seen so many people. Everywhere I looked, there were thousands of people. When I stood on a raised platform, all I could see were protesters. Several were still coming into the Central Business District, walking in from the feeder roads, which lead into the city centre. Near me, a young man in a mask walked past, dragging a section of a fence, which different protesters said had been part of Parliament. In the distance, I saw a flaming pyre and a water truck, commandeered by protesters shouting and singing: ‘Reject Finance Bill!’ and ‘Ruto Must Go!’
We were out in the streets to protest the 2024 Finance Bill and President William Ruto’s government. We were armed with our water bottles, bandanas, face masks, phones and Kenyan flags. The Finance Bill proposed a raft of taxation measures that would have left a lot of Kenyans suffering. Some of the measures proposed included: an increase in the tax on bread, a newly introduced 2.5 per cent motor vehicle tax, an increase in taxation of imported sanitary products and diapers, an introduction of Value Added Tax at 16 per cent on financial services and an introduction of an eco-levy tax. The measures were so sweeping that they encapsulated almost all goods and services that many people used daily.
MONTHS OF SUFFERING
On the day that he was sworn in, in September 2022, President Ruto announced the removal of subsidies for petrol. This meant that the price of petrol on the next review went up drastically by about thirty shillings per litre; and because fuel is a key factor in several commodities, it led to a subsequent rise in their prices. This felt like a measure straight from the IMF’s playbook with Kenya’s debt standing at $80 billion.
Ruto came into the presidency with goodwill. He framed himself as the anti-establishment candidate, even though he had been the sitting deputy president, and had captured the hopes of several people who were struggling economically. He promised that those at the bottom of the economic pyramid would benefit the most through an economic policy he called ‘bottom-up’. In the first few months of coming into office, his government put out the Hustler Fund, a loan project meant to provide instant micro-loans to Kenyan citizens upon request.
He also went about consolidating political power. His coalition initially did not have a majority in the National Assembly. However, he was able to get smaller parties from the opposition coalition to join him and vote with the members of parliament aligned with the government. This was how the Speaker, Moses Wetangula, was elected. Essentially this meant that the president could pass any legislation he wanted through the House. In what appeared to be a vendetta, the president set up a tribunal in December 2022 to try four Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners who had disagreed with the August 2022 presidential results. The four commissioners were eventually forced out of the electoral body; and with the remaining three commissioners completing their term in January 2023, it meant that no single election could be held in the country as the IEBC needs to have commissioners to conduct elections. With this, it appeared as if Ruto’s power was absolute and that he could do whatever it was that he wanted.
And he did!
In June 2023, the National Assembly passed a Finance Bill that introduced a highly controversial housing levy. This levy accounted for 1.5 per cent of an employee’s gross pay and it was supposed to go towards an affordable housing programme. However, when the units prices were released to the public, the prices were not affordable to many people at all. This Finance Bill led to protests in 2023 which were mainly due to the rise in the cost of living. These protests were led by the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, but they effectively died down when the government and the opposition set up a National Dialogue Committee. Perhaps it was as a result of this working relationship that Odinga was proposed by the state to be the African Union Commission Chairperson after the exit of Moussa Faki in 2025, a position for which he needs state machinery to win.
In a move that drew national criticism, President Ruto travelled around the world claiming the trips were meant to benefit Kenyans. From September 2022 to June 2024, he went on 62 trips to 38 different countries within 20 months of being in office. He also fashioned himself as a pan-African leader. For example, in April 2023, at the Mo Ibrahim Governance Forum held in Nairobi, he lamented the high interest rates on loans developing countries received from financial institutions in comparison to developed countries. He also proposed switching from the use of dollars within African countries to trading in local currencies and the removal of visas for African countries. For a while, some believed him. But he let this pan-African facade fall off in July 2023 when his then foreign minister, Alfred Mutua, announced that Kenya had accepted to send Kenyan police officers to Haiti in the name of peacekeeping contrary to the wishes of many Kenyans and Haitians. The United States was the key financial backer of this mission and pledged $300 million. President Ruto established a comfortable relationship with Western governments, particularly the United States, which led to him being honoured with a State visit in Washington on 23 May 2024, where Kenya was named a major non-NATO ally. [Text Wrapping Break]
In another detrimental policy, the government announced in August 2023 that it was scrapping the National Health Insurance Fund in favour of what it said would be a new and improved fund named Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). This meant more taxes would be imposed as SHIF would take 2.75 per cent of gross salary for those people who were formally employed.
The High Court declared SHIF unconstitutional due to a lack of public participation and also declared the proposed deployment of police officers to Haiti as unconstitutional. However, the government of President Ruto went ahead with their plans, disregarding the courts and the rule of law.
When President Ruto removed subsidies on fuel, he mentioned that subsidies should not be on the consumption of products but rather on their production. Therefore, a fertilizer subsidy was introduced. However, the Ministry of Agriculture was caught in a fertiliser scandal where fake or substandard fertilizer was sold to unsuspecting farmers who thought they were purchasing subsidized fertilizer.
The Ruto administration also created offices not enshrined in the constitution, but which were expected to be funded by the public, to seemingly reward the president’s cronies and friends. These included the offices of the Chief Administrative Secretaries of whom the president had appointed 50, the office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary, the office of the Spouse of the Prime Cabinet Secretary, the Office of the Spouse of the Deputy President and so forth. This is compounded by the fact that 67 per cent of Kenyan youth (15 to 34) are unemployed. Thus, when the Finance Bill 2024 was introduced, the spark for revolt was ignited.
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THE PROTEST MOVEMENT
The protests began on 18 June 2024. Online, the hashtags #OccupyParliament, #RejectFinanceBill2024 and #RutoMustGo trended. What was unique about the protests is that they had no recognized leader, they were organic with many protesters carrying the Kenyan flag, water bottles, masks to protect against tear gas and their smartphones. A sizeable number of protesters were young and fresh-faced with this being their first time to go out to protest. Another key aspect of the protest was that it was not affiliated with any tribe or political party.
Even though I was on the internet engaged with the protests, my heart was out in the streets, despite the deep fear I held because of how police officers had dealt with protesters in previous years with some protesters being shot and many being teargassed. It was wonderful however to see how different people came to help each other. Through an organization called Medics for Kenya, young doctors set up free medical centres in the city centre to treat people who were wounded in the protests and the Law Society of Kenya had a team of lawyers who traversed police stations to secure the release of protesters, providing their legal services free of charge.
Media houses fashioned the name ‘Gen Z protests’ which I found to be reductive. Even though the protests were largely attended by young people, there was still a number of people who were much older who were out in the streets. This was because the poor governance had cut deep across all ages. I’d taken to online activism on the first two days of the protests, posting, sharing and doing anything that I could to raise as much awareness as I could about the protests. I’d seen some of my friends out in the streets with placards and I’d promised myself that I’d go. That second day, Rex Masai, a young protester was shot and killed. He was the first among the many protesters who would be martyred.
On Tuesday 25 June, when I had an off day from work, I bought a bandana and later on met my friends in Westlands and we got on a bus and made our way into the city centre. The day was sunny and filled with the joy of the protests: people danced on the streets, sang protest songs, took pictures with placards and shouted out our rallying call for being there in the first place, ‘Reject Finance Bill!’ The braver ones were farther ahead, battling with the water cannon truck, which sprayed coloured water towards them. It truly felt as if it were the release of rage and oppression that we’d withheld for so long. What was remarkable about this day was that the protests were held in a record 35 out of the 47 counties in the country, showing how far and deep the discontent filtered. However, immediately after members of parliament passed the Finance Bill, something changed in the air, and we learnt that Parliament had been breached. We heard gunshots ringing out. This was mainly confined to the area around Parliament as members were being evacuated. Much later on TikTok, I’d see videos of young protesters who live-streamed their occupation of Parliament. How brave they were as the shots rang out from the police and yet they still walked into the building.
In the afternoon, after hours of protesting, when it was around 4 p.m., my friends and I left the city centre. We’d been told that a state of emergency would be declared, and that the military would be called in, and everyone inside the city centre would be locked in. Yet as we walked to Westlands on Waiyaki Way, all we could see were people walking into the city centre. They were coming from Uthiru, from Kinoo and some were even coming from Kikuyu. ‘Viva!’ they shouted at us, raising their fists. That night, after the protests, the president came out and termed the protests as ‘treasonous’.
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The next day, the cabinet secretary for defence approved an unconstitutional deployment of the army, which was hurriedly approved by a rushed parliament proceeding. However, on the next day, the president appeared at the State House with the same members of parliament who had approved the bill, declined to sign it and withdrew the Finance Bill, clearly shaken by our protests. ‘I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill and it shall subsequently be withdrawn,’ President Ruto said, ‘The people have spoken.’
While this was our first victory, we had lost so much towards its achievement. So many people died during the protests. The Kenya National Commission for Human Rights placed this figure at 60. I remember David Chege, shot dead outside Parliament as the protests raged on and some of his fellow protesters draping his body with the Kenyan flag and continuing to protest. I remember Denzel Onyango Omondi, one of the protesters who occupied Parliament and whose body was found in a quarry days later, and so many other people who turned up dead after the protests.
There were also abductions, which were reportedly carried out by the state with the government in search of non-existent protest leaders and funders; they believed that the movement could not be organic and that people must have been paid to go out in the streets. In comparison to previous protests, which used to be led by the opposition, there was no central figure to invite for a discussion. This, I believe, was a great strength, because the movement could continue regardless of who would remain to protest. People who had a large social media following were announced missing and then they would turn up some days later after people online campaigned for their release. This dreadful disappearance and torture of people was reminiscent of the days of the dictatorial regime of Daniel Arap Moi and the Nyayo House torture chambers.
The peaceful nature of the protests began to change after Parliament was occupied. There was a planned protest to occupy State House on 27 June that never materialized, partially because of fear of what would happen, a division of opinion amongst the protesters on the loss of life such a march would entail and the deployment of the military. The protests were reportedly infiltrated by people allegedly hired by politicians who vandalized shops and attacked fellow protesters or held counter-protests that heaped praise on the government. These were compounded by disinformation campaigns which were targeted at derailing the movement.
My exhaustion was total. I went to a literature festival on the weekend after Parliament was occupied, and I could hardly follow the proceedings. I felt out of balance, my mind was raging, and I had carried with me all the voices and violence of protests. I left the festival and went to look at paintings at Circle Art Gallery. There was an exhibition for the artist Tabitha wa Thuku and I felt the calm nature of an art gallery would bring some peace to my mind. I walked around the gallery in silence, it was mostly empty except for two or three other visitors. I stopped at a painting titled Laurete’s Anger, which showed Wangarĩ Maathai’s face surrounded by a forest. The painting reminded me of her life as an activist and how she fought Daniel Arap Moi’s dictatorial regime to preserve the environment. I’d read her book Unbowed, and it detailed her struggle through years and years of repression and how she did not waver in protecting forests against a government that was determined not to let her do so. It had taken her years to even accomplish simple goals. My spirit was strengthened while I looked at the painting. We’d been out in the streets for about two weeks and resilience was something I learnt we would need to have if we wanted to achieve our goal of good governance.
The movement found other creative ways to protest. On 7 July, protesters held a concert in Uhuru Park to commemorate those who had died and to honour them as martyrs. It was a wonderful moment of patriotism and so many people turned up to honour them. Hanifa Adan, a protester and activist, set up an M-Changa account where people raised money to help out the victims of the protests: those who were in hospital and injured and to give some money and support to the families of those who had died. Additionally, young people went to churches that platformed politicians and whenever a politician was given the microphone to speak, young people would rise up in protest and silence the politician or find ways to bring proceedings to a halt. This was the same case in funerals where politicians spoke and also in fundraisers.
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THE AFTERMATH
On 11 July, the president dissolved his entire cabinet except for the Prime Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi, who is also the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary. I suppose the president recognized the imminent collapse of his government. There were certain things he could no longer do. For instance, after taking 62 trips around the world in his first 20 months, he did not leave the country for weeks. It appeared as if the expensive trips he took around the world, which he had said were for the benefit of the country, were no longer as important. On days the protests took place, roads to the State House were barricaded by the police and only authorized persons could go in or out. While this was supposedly done to maintain order and calm along the road, it gave the sign of a leader was afraid of his own people; of a leader who was slowly losing legitimacy. In addition, the Inspector General of Police, Japheth Koome, resigned.
When the cabinet was dissolved, the president announced that he was forming a ‘broad-based government’. Although a distant expectation, we expected that the new cabinet would contain people of integrity who would be competent. We also expected that police officers who shot and killed protesters would be prosecuted and more than anything else we expected that our lives would be easier, that corrupt people would be prosecuted; that we would have a better country. Instead, the political class consolidated. Odinga, the opposition leader, in a moment of deep betrayal, formally joined the government by having his party members from the Orange Democratic Movement join the cabinet.
Despite the lull in the protests, the mindset of many of us in the movement has changed. We have realized that our future belongs in our hands and that we need to be active citizens to achieve our goal of good governance. In a music concert I went to recently, the names of the 60 people who had lost their lives were displayed on the screen and we took a moment to honour their sacrifice and to sign the national anthem. Our struggle hasn’t ended, and the lines have now clearly been drawn: on one side, there is the political elite who would rather have the country burn just to feel warm but, on the other side, there is us who hope for a better future for ourselves⎈
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