'Nane Nane' (August 8) was meant to be the day there was a million-man march into the capital, Nairobi, to mark the peak of the Gen Z protests and add pressure on President William Ruto to resign.
Instead, it ended up being probably the least inspiring of all the protest days. In fact, in areas like Luo Nyanza, an epicentre of the demos in June and July, residents interviewed by media houses flatly stated that they were now in government and would no longer conduct demonstrations in cities like Kisumu.
That same Thursday morning, State House was abuzz with activity as Ruto swore in his newly appointed Cabinet, including four Cabinet Secretaries co-opted from opposition ranks. It was almost a contemptuous message to protesters that the government had bent its back enough and would no longer listen to them.
It is difficult to pinpoint who the protest organisers have been, but if they were watching the Cabinet taking the oath, their feeling of déjà vu must have been quite strong, seeing the country moving on despite the hanging air of anxiety.
There is no doubt that co-opting senior opposition figures into his government has bought Ruto quite a bit of time, as far as the agitation from young Kenyans is concerned. The general feeling within the larger population is that perhaps the agitators need to give the new team time to acquit itself or fail first before returning to the streets.
The overriding narrative, however, is that continued closure of businesses, caused by unending protests, is beginning to hurt the common man more than the government as intended. The uncertainty does no favours to small businesses, which presumably feed the young Kenyans, too, when they retreat from the streets.
Along with the foregoing, one thing said in whispers, but which is a near-consensus in the country, is that the most effective day of all, for the entire period of the protests, was June 25, when mobs of demonstrators breached Parliament buildings.
Even people in the security services accept, albeit grudgingly, that on that June afternoon, the young Kenyans not only came close to deposing a sitting government but achieved a feat that would be impossible to emulate in future. After all, the security apparatus wouldn’t be caught napping like that twice.
Be that as it may, one must acknowledge the blunders by the young activists themselves, which played a key role in puncturing the momentum of their protests. The most glaring one, quite obviously, was that at the peak of their show, they went dismissing nearly every leader in the land and dissociating themselves from personalities who may have been important allies of their movement.
They not only made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with Azimio boss Raila Odinga, the country’s foremost protest legend, but also ODM’s secretary general Edwin Sifuna, someone who would have made the cut as a natural Gen Z ally.
A revolution, by its very nature, aims to bring as many people as possible onboard. Because revolutions, truth be told, are about numbers and the size of support. Any protest movement that alienates certain demographics starts off by creating enemies instead of finding friends. There was only so far the Gen Z protests could go after adopting the “Raila is not one of us” and “Sifuna is not with us” posture.
Needless to say, ODM is the longest-surviving protest movement in the country, and it is foolhardy for anyone with any grievances worth demonstrating about to unequivocally ask it to stay away.
There is a Demonstrations Industrial Complex in the country, if I may call it so. Its structure and form is an open secret. By ethnicity, it is heavily Luo. By political party, it has a heavy touch of ODM in it. Since the restoration of multiparty politics in 1992, street battles between regime police and demonstrators have seen many unarmed civilians killed, many of them tracing their roots to Luo Nyanza. The experience has, therefore, been such that whenever the country seeks change by street agitation, everyone checks to see where the Luo stand on the matter.
Because this is a resource underwritten by political networks, it goes without saying that beyond adrenaline-driven spontaneous acts of protests, real long-term demonstrations cannot detach themselves from the political class, as well as the basic foundation of the demonstrations industrial complex.
At the very least, any movement that prides itself in not having a known leadership or form should, as a matter of sustenance, join hands with one that does so that the agitation takes a form. I am, therefore, persuaded that the Gen Z shot themselves in the foot by rejecting Raila, his huge following in the country, his lethal protest networks and his own Gen Z followers, who may have been on the streets with them earlier.
Nevertheless, I suspect that the prevailing peace, whether caused by Ruto’s new broad-based government or Gen Z failures to sustain their protests, is only temporary. In my view, the economic and governance issues that drove citizens onto the streets are too deep-seated to be wiped away by mere Cabinet changes, or even the co-opting of cross-divide politicians into government. We have already seen the devastating manner in which young Kenyans can mobilise on social media and bring the country to a standstill. That threat will always be hanging over our heads, just a click away.
This means that for Ruto, the bigger concern cannot be to find who funded the protests. Indeed, the usual nature of protests is such that most of those who turn up would never get to know the actual leaders and funders.
Therefore, whether or not the shadowy leadership of the movement can be traced to prominent Kenyans with a bone to pick with his regime, the President has to be aware that ultimately, the existence of a disgruntled and increasingly brave youth force in the country is a time bomb awaiting the simplest of triggers. Common sense demands that their grievances be listed and acted upon in the shortest time possible.
Let me return briefly to the opposition protest networks I just mentioned. In the current scheme of things, they may feel that since there are at least five of their own currently in Cabinet, it is imperative to wait and see how everything pans out in the medium term. Consequently, Gen Z agitators feeling betrayed may also drift back into the general population, at least in the short term.
But Ruto should make no mistake; the ODM people he has hired come from a different culture and will not be averse to resigning from government should frustrations or policy failures make them unable to effectively deliver on their mandate.
Simply put, the broad-based government must, as a matter of necessity, work and succeed. If it doesn’t, Ruto’s regime will return to the same point where the Finance Bill 2024 united a large part of the country against it.
Only this time, disenchanted opposition networks that had hoped that the injection of some of their own into government would make a difference, will be on the streets, too. So will DP Gachagua’s own disillusioned Mount Kenya political machine.
To avoid another June 25, it is in Ruto’s interests that his government now performs, and performs well, or the second season of Gen Z may come soon.