There have been cheers and jeers surrounding the actions of Julius Kimani, the man accused of disrupting Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung'u’s Budget Day photoshoot. He did this by yelling and causing a commotion as the picture was being taken.
Kimani, who has since appeared in court, was seen to rush at the Treasury CS and his colleagues, who were posing for a commemorative photograph.
As he ran towards the group, he was tackled by burly security officers and taken away in handcuffs, while still protesting at the top of his voice.
This was not Kimani’s first rodeo, so to speak. In April 2022, he was arrested by police outside Parliament Buildings as he prepared to protest against then Treasury CS Ukur Yatani.
On that occasion, Kimani was a lone placard-carrying protestor arrested by plainclothes police officers, who locked him up at the Central Police Station.
The Defenders Coalition paid the Sh5,000 bond that earned Kimani his freedom in that case.
While I completely understand and appreciate what drove Kimani to take the actions he did both times, I have a number of fears about what might happen next.
Firstly, perhaps because I grew up at a time when it was common for the police and other security organs to torture people who actively opposed the government, I always worry that people like KImani will be mistreated in the cells.
I also worry that he will be made out to be a danger to society and locked up for a long time over this protest where nobody was harmed, and only a couple of egos may have been bruised.
The Constitution gives Kenyans the right to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions to public authorities if they are peaceful and unarmed.
However, my biggest fear is that like MPs, Cabinet Secretaries will now want to be armed and have extra security and protection from an increasingly angry public who will, of course, be footing the bill.
I remember very clearly how in May 2000, MPs passed a motion requiring the government to provide them with firearms and bodyguards.
In those days, only Cabinet ministers and the speaker were provided with armed bodyguards, and just a handful of legislators were licensed to carry pistols.
I hate to imagine how the incident might have unfolded if one of those famously trigger-happy MPs had been in the group posing for the picture at the Treasury that day.
It’s a good thing that the people who run the country are far too busy doing other things to stop and take a few minutes to read the newspapers. If they did bother to read columns such as this one, they might get ideas.
They might feel the need to adopt a set of strategies for enabling radical change in the way they govern rather than impeding it, and that would be totally out of character.
For the last few months, the phrase, “The fear is gone and the clouds are gathering”, or variations thereof, has been popping up with more frequency on my X timeline.
The phrase is being used in connection with political events in Kenya, and how anything and everything the government of the day does is up for scrutiny, criticism and rejection by a growing number of Kenyans.
The phrase also seems to be alluding to the fact that there is a tremendous intensity of feeling among Kenyans when it comes to matters of new taxes and tax hikes.
These matters, alongside corruption and other governance issues such as ethics and integrity, are affecting Kenyans negatively. There appears to be the suggestion that perhaps the state would be wise to bow to the gathering storm.
Of course it would be a modern miracle if this government ever acted in a manner to suggest it was paying heed to such warnings.
They seem resolved to “kaa ngumu” in their lane and complaining Kenyans should either shut up and go along with everything or prepare to be ignored as the government will have its way “wapende wasipende”.
If there is no change, I foresee the multiplication of incidents similar to the disruption of the Budget Day photoshoot.