In the early hours of June 25, 2024, a team of security officers invaded the home of social media influencer and newspaper satirist, Gabriel Oguda.
Unlike most of his colleagues who had been kidnapped that day and around that time, the columnist with a huge social media following had time to actually post on his handles that the police were at his gate.
That way, at least friends and relatives knew where to begin the search. The s fate would have it however, later that morning, the Gen Z protests hit their peak and Parliament was breached.
The search for Oguda therefore became a cat and mouse game through Nairobi police stations during the day, mostly using back routes, because the main streets had been rendered impassable by demonstrators.
It would only be much later that night, that a proper search would be possible, along roads and routes where the pungent smell of teargas still reigned.
Incidentally, after friends and relatives visited most police stations within Nairobi and Kajiado counties, the police still denied holding Oguda.
The writer would subsequently be released without charge the next morning, presumably after investigators found nothing linking him to the riots.
It looked like having been caught flat-footed by the riots, investigative and intelligence agencies were fishing in the dark for culpable individuals.
It may still not be clear how the massive demos were organised and by who, but truth be said, they did manage to create a potent force of young agitators in the country, easily mobilised on social media and ready to take on authorities.
If a face was to be placed on the third liberation, it turned out to be the previously harmless, “Cerelac” generation.
The other thing the protests gave rise to was a new breed of young leaders, mostly what the public loves to refer to as “social media influencers”, who were initially presumed by the security services to have been the forces behind the violent demos.
When President William Ruto ultimately “listened to the voices of the people” by returning the Finance Bill 2024, which had been the main sticking point of the protests and then dissolving his Cabinet, most Kenyans hoped he would take that perfect opportunity to reconstitute it by incorporating young professionals - especially those who had been celebrated by the young agitators as stars of the “leaderless” Gen Z movement.
Quite incredibly, when reconstituting the Cabinet after the Gen Z riots, the President, once again, opted to play politics. Understandably to a large extent, Ruto was forced to incorporate members of the opposition into his new team, apparently seeking to restore some stability after the riots.
He went for the ODM heavy hitters; two of the party’s deputy leader, its chairman, its national assembly minority leader and a member of its national elections board.
You couldn’t really begrudge the President this line of thinking. Political aesthetics demanded that to bring in the opposition as a partner in a new broad-based government, in the midst of serious adversity, he had to go for genuine opposition giants and not just runof-the-mill political players.
Except that by doing this, he missed the chance to extend a hand to the young people whose riots had nearly brought down his government.
More importantly, continuing the culture of appointing politicians into Cabinet simply served to perpetuate the habit of giving a policy platform to loud-mouthed political operators whose eyes are usually more focused on their next political contest than on delivery to the people.
But there is now a chance to bring in young technocrats into government via the impending appointments of new Principal Secretaries. The Public Service Commission will be interviewing the last batch of shortlisted candidates for the position of PS on Friday.
Among them will be former abductee, Gabriel Oguda. And if he makes it through, there is no doubt that President Ruto will have appointed one of the most brilliant minds into his government.
Beyond what the public knows about him through his social media activism and humour, the satirist is a brilliant and strategic thinker, a well-read and widely travelled man with an affinity for statistics and facts.
As already indicated, he is also a fantastic communicator, one of the things the President sometimes lacks in his government.
There are many young people on the shortlist and Ruto will be spoilt for choice when the PSC presents their nominees.
But I pick Oguda as the quintessential profile of what should be and should have been, in terms of the ideal outlook of the human resource needed in a functional government.
Politics is an old-fashioned trade, yet policy and governance are evolving through the era of new technology and AI.
You can get away with elderly noise makers as Cabinet Secretaries at policy level, but as accounting officers, the Principal Secretaries need to be articulate professionals who help move the agenda forward.
It is still not clear whether President Ruto will sweep the board clean or will keep some of his current PSs. But suffice it to say that within his government, he has some PSs who have acquitted themselves admirably, with good skills, performance and a fantastic sense of presence.
I have in mind PSs like Interior’s Raymond Omollo, Foreign Affairs’ Korir Sing’oei and Public Health’s Mary Muthoni. When tasks that I often consider poisoned chalices have been thrown at this trio, each on of them has come out looking competent, comfortable in their skin and totally cut out for the job.
I would imagine that the President’s intention is to mix this cast of proven technocrats with a fresh breed of young, intelligent and skilled thinkers, of Oguda’s mould, to navigate the tricky two-and-ahalf years remaining in his term.
He may not fully placate the restless Gen Z, but his government desperately needs more public servants, especially those from outside the core of political parties, who can reassure an increasingly despondent nation that he is not only seeking fresh blood for senior ranks in his government, but that this fresh blood is made up of young professionals who can help him steer the ship.
If I had the President’s ear, of course, I would outline the profile of that new breed, as represented by Oguda. That injection of young blood into government, in my view, is a very long overdue idea.
The writer is a political commentator
