By Abdullahi Alas
Kenya is now officially under cross-road. The recent protest by Generation Z or Zoomers (Gen Z), Millennial and my age group Generation x, now supported by most parents have taken to the streets to show their dissatisfactions against the finance Bill 2024 that has a lot of punitive tax increase.
Well, these has rekindled the old Turks memories when the like of James Orengo, Raila Odinga, Gitobu Imanyara, Matiba Kenneth, Charles Rubia, George Anyona, Willy Mutunga, Kivutha Kibwna and Marting Shikuku among other prominent politician in Kenya today have led the protest to repeal section 2a to open Kenya to a more robust multiparty democracy.
It took twenty-nine (29) years to deliver the August Promulgated 2010 constitutions and other statutory laws. The key achievement falls under article 172-76 that deal with forty-seven (47) counties in Kenya under the two tier government. National and County.
At the time, we were just twenty-nine (29) years after 1963 independence. Gen Z are now sixty years after independence, generations apart.
The current generation in Kenya are growing up in a different nation. A nation connects by technological advisement, entertainment, citizen journalism, bloggers and comedian, yet skilled professional. Doctors, Advocates, actuarial science graduates, IT gurus, political scientist, engineers and researchers unlike our older generation.
So, it would be quite difficult to operate with the mind-set of Moi era under the new Constitution. This informs on why the current government of Kenya kwanza led by William Ruto should look for subtler modus operandi. With tech savvy youthful professional with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok handles, it remains to be seen how leaderless youthful teams can be abducted and murdered, and to achieve what?
History of civil murders, Political targeting and Assassinations.
Under Jomo Kenyatta era, immediately after Independence, targeted assassinations stated on On 24 February 1965, at the Westland’s neighborhoods of Parklands in Nairobi, Pinto was shot at close range in the driveway while waiting for the gate to be opened. He was with his daughter in his car at the time of his killing. Pinto became the first Kenyan politician to be assassinated after Independence. Others high profile politicians include Thomas Joseph Mboya in 1969, JM Kariuki in 1975, Robert Ouko in 1990, among other notable political leaders, last person being Chris Msando just before 2022 elections.
Why was electoral commission official Chris Msando tortured and killed just days before the Kenyan elections?
Despite speculation to the contrary, indicators were that Kenya’s 2017 election, while highly contentious, would not rise to the level of violence experienced in 2007. As many as 16,259 people are standing for office, suggesting that for better or worse there is greater increasing interest in participating in politics. The primaries in April were neither completely free nor fair but the number of incumbents that were voted out suggested that voters were ready to exercise their agency. Since then, there have been other prominent murders, such as the killing on Father John Kaiser of the Catholic Church on August 23, 2000, University of Nairobi student leader Titus Adungosi in August 1988 and Anglican Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge, who died in a suspicious road accident on August 14, 1990.
Nearly half a century since the assassination of Mboya and Kariuki, a string of high-profile murder cases lies unresolved in court registries and in police files as poor investigations, lack of forensic technology and an apparent official conspiracy to cover up political murders continue to dog the country’s criminal justice system.
The toxic politics that led to the murders of political luminaries such as Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto and Robert Ouko, as well as election violence in 1988, 1992, 1997, 2007 and 2013, is still with us.
The government of the day tyrannical tendencies for fear mongering that worked under Jomo Kenyatta and Moi can’t work today. We have a very well thought of Constitution that has streamline how institutions function, how government is run and services delivered to the polity. The era of social media advancement and connected society, it will be interesting to the strategy of Moi remnants in KK government.
Ruto’s Sloganism of 2022
As a man who joined YK92, then elected five terms as a Member of Parliament for Eldoret North, DP for 10 years and now as President of the Republic of Kenya. He sold hope among the ‘hustlers’, bodaboda, mama mbaga, Mtu ya chini. With already disfranchised population under Uhuru’s regime, many Kenyans became gullible for Ruto ‘sweet’ empty rhetoric with the sole intention to ascend to power. After he was sworn in, he said when he puts the bible down, thing will change. Well, that now seems a distant mirage. He turned out to be an outright LIER.
The Writer is Governance and Policy Analyst based in Mandera County.
