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June 25 2025, marked another turning point in Kenya’s democracy. Thousands of protestors presented a clear demand to its leadership – accountability. I have previously outlined how, in the age of information, the legitimacy of incumbent governments is determined by its ability to deliver the public interest. In Kenya Kwanza’s case, police impunity is the singular contagion issue that threatens to collapse the social contract that allows coercive government. Simply, there is increasing concern over Kenya Kwanza’s inability to follow the rule of law, their use of excessive force and their locust-like proclivities.
Tittering on a socio-economic collapse, Kenyans must now make a hard choice: fight, take flight or collaborate. An informal survey in Nairobi coloured in the following ensemble.
The agents of empire
Colonialism never ended! Julius Kamau screams as he is bundled into a Mariamu, a police car colloquially named after the “Black Maria” police wagons of 1930s Boston, Massachusetts. Seemingly true to the musings of an upside down, bloodied Julius, Kenya has been chafing at the increase in pressure from the empire’s boot on its neck.
In stark contrast to the levity, pomp and funfair that accompanied Kenya’s designation as a Major Non-NATO United States ally, our new-found status of “special African” to democracy’s most aggressive defender has come at a hidden cost to our children, our health and, ironically, our “democracy”. While the Kenya Kwanza administration was conceived in Washington, birthed through the theatre of Kenya’s 2022 elections, and baptised by then Ambassador Meg Whitman’s enthusiastic endorsement, Kenya’s loud and clumsy slide into authoritarianism hasn’t elicited as much as a slap on the wrist from Master.
While the Bretton Woods club carves out its pound of flesh from Kenya’s economy, the trickle of austerity has turned into a life-threatening haemorrhage as Kenya Kwanza sustains its assault on Kenya’s economy, productive capacity, education, healthcare, SMEs and more. While the morals and ethics of the IMF lending billions of dollars to Kenya’s demonstrably corrupt, increasingly authoritarian government with a plunging human rights record is beyond the scope of this article, I invite you to imagine empire’s boot digging into Kenya’s already fractured neck as the poor, infirm and unemployed succumb to the forced austerity, deadly incompetence and malignant corruption in Kenya Kwanza’s democratic dystopia.
Kenya’s breaking neck threatens to ricochet on the agents of empire that are comfortably nestled in the soon-to-be not so “Green City in the Sun”. Promised a slice of the White Highlands of colonial lore, the bustling expatriate economy is in for a rude awakening as that of the “restless natives” sours. To the thousands of incoming UN staff, beware: collateral damage is inevitable as Kenyan youth realise they need to fight for justice to enjoy its protection as “shield and defender”.
The croaking sycophants
The political class have repeatedly clutched their imaginary pearls at the jubilant schadenfreude that follows the death of politicians and their kin. The hurt and confusion they project is in conscious avoidance of the betrayal that the electorate has experienced under the hustler’s government. In a nod to the nonsensical riddles sputtered at the public in anger and contempt, I present one of my own.
A scorpion wants to be ferried across a river (election) and charms a passing frog for a ride. The frog hesitates, declaring, “You will sting me!” Scandalised at the accusation, the scorpion appeals to the frog’s logic, “If I sting you, we will both die.” Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. Unwilling or unable to understand that they are the proverbial frog on the scorpion’s back, politicians allied to Kenya kwanza are seemingly unaware that the sins of this regime will stain their prospects, proceeds and lineage in perpetuity. Cursed with the malignant greed that eats its children, Kenya Kwanza will prop up popular politicians, tarnish them by sucking all their political goodwill dry, finally discarding them to the murderous masses.
Slobbering over the proceeds of corruption as they approve ruinous policies, laws and regulations, the political class have pushed this nation to the brink. Mocking Kenyans while stoking tribal and generational animosity. The government of deluded frogs, however, continues to unwittingly galvanise a new, tribeless, ageless electorate baying for their blood “in common bond united”. The moral true north remembers and they have vowed that they will be there when that moral arc curves towards justice for Kenyans.
The National Police Service is gleefully acrobatic in meting out the brutality necessary to prop up the Kenya Kwanza regime. Bludgeoning, shooting and tear-gassing the public’s opposition to anti-Kenya policies, the police are enthusiastic in their role as the last bastion of the colonial home guard. Protected and rewarded for their violence, they have long since stopped questioning which legitimate government will kill its own children and then protect the police.
The good men letting evil prevail
The majority of Kenyan boomers are hoping the bad governance exemplified by the Kenya Kwanza regime will just go away. Wilfully ignorant of the frustrations of millennials and the youth, boomers scoff and scowl, mumbling to each other how unruly and lazy the youth of these days are. Why can’t the youth just work harder for stable incomes, families and society?
The “Wacheni kuchoma nchi” (Let’s not burn our country down/we only have one country) boomer brigade are experientially stuck in a time when a little education and semi-competent leadership went a long way to securing a comfortable future. The flabbergasting reality, however, is that boomers are living in Kenya Kwanza’s economic dystopia too; they have lost assets, businesses and incomes to KK’s mind-boggling incompetence. I shudder at the depth of cognitive dissonance that allows Kenya’s boomers to sit back and scold as their grandchildren are sacrificed to Mammon.
The majority of the middle class are no better. While you turn up your nose as the youth are beaten to a pulp in service to the political class, you are unwilling or unable to comprehend that the politicians whom you secretly envy are trying to make you as desperate as the “goons” that disgust you. The well-oiled and well-travelled middle-class imagines it has something to lose – a job, a business, vacations – and it is ludicrous. As they shrink in numbers, picked off one by one like sheep to the slaughter, they still believe they are somehow insulated by their “good breeding”, their money, their networks. They are wildly mistaken.
Make no mistake, middle-class Kenyans; you are fighting for a way of life you hold so dear but there is only one redundancy, SHA fiasco, or black swan event between you and bitter poverty. When Kenya Kwanza finishes off the rioting poor and disenfranchised, know without a doubt that you are next. That is the great genius of this hustler government; the politics of the other. They have already dehumanised the millions of Kenyans who are young and poor and desperate to survive. They have made them goons or problematic tribes. They do this so that when they kill in the shadowy comers of informal settlements, in protests, you will be quiet. This is your fight, you have just outsourced it to those younger and more vulnerable than you.
Places of worship in Kenya have been soiled by the blood of the youth. Frenzied for money that was meant for medicine, healthcare, education and more, you are complicit in every death that Kenya Kwanza has orchestrated, overseen or enabled through incompetence. You are too tainted for the heaven you sell.
The righteous youth
The June 25th anti-Ruto protest was an illustration of the raw and unyielding power of a people united. The protests are a political and social reset, and for those agitating for good governance, this movement defies tribal tropes, class cleavages and generational schisms. Those seeking to divide and rule are rattled. The political class, desperate to reignite the ethnocentric tensions that have stolen peace, lives, and aspirations, tremble that protestors now know who stands in the way of their progress. You must not relent, together you will free this nation.
Victory requires the exorcism of persistent spectres of tribalism, greed and the desire for power from among your ranks. You are the cycle breakers, the chosen that shall redeem Africa from the original sin of profiteering from our fellow African’s slavery, poverty and foolishness. There has never been a generation in this country so clear in its understanding of right and wrong. Vox populi, vox Dei! In the Fight for Kenya’s Soul, Choose Your Fighter, Choose Your Stance
