Were the youth demos planned or were they an organic uprising?

The epoch leadership changes created by the June 2024 Gen Z protests in Kenya are still ringing loud, not only in the country but across the African continent.

However, debate persists on whether the youth uprising was spontaneous or planned by anti-government saboteurs.

President William Ruto’s supporters, like Belgut MP Nelson Koech, who chairs the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations in Parliament, have long argued that former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua planned and organised the protests.

The Gen Z have, however, all along been clear that runaway corruption and bad governance, lack of serious public consultation over the Finance Bill 2024, and ignoring their input drove them into mass protests.

The former DP, who was impeached last October, has also repeatedly scoffed at those allegations, instead accusing his then-boss, President William Ruto, of linking him to the demos as part of the campaign used to kick him out of office.

Gachagua argues that President Ruto already wanted him out of his government long before the Gen Z demos, because he was already mobilising MPs in both Houses to remove him through a smear campaign.

“The Gen Z protests only offered him another propaganda tool to achieve his goals. They teamed up and began accusing me of organising and financing the protests. I did not do any of that, but if those good children had requested me to be their leader, I would have happily done it,” Gachagua later said in a TV interview.

Despite pro-government leaders, among them Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, making very serious allegations that protests were organized by people who wanted to overthrow Ruto’s government, no significant proof has been given.

What remains factual until now is that the Finance Bill 2024 protests, widely known as #RejectFinanceBill2024, or Gen Z protests, were a series of decentralized mass protests in Kenya against tax increases proposed by the Bill.

The protests broke out spontaneously in all towns across the country, involving millions of young people who occupied streets in peaceful demonstrations, carrying Kenyan flags and bottles of water.

That was before the agitation turned ugly, leading to confrontation with police in Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa, and other towns, after the protests were infiltrated by goons and looters.

It is, however, widely agreed that the massive Gen Z protests were caused by an accumulation of frustrations emanating from populist but false or undelivered promises made by the Kenya Kwanza government.

Corruption in government, church, and the police service, lack of jobs, expensive and unaffordable education, coupled with heavy taxation, became the rallying call as the youth declared, “enough is enough”.

All issues raised by Gen Z, including a bloated government, largesse, and primitive display of money, unnecessary foreign travels, plus abductions and killings, are still daily occurrences.

The so-called youth and women empowerment functions presided over by Deputy President Kithure Kindiki and Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, where millions of cash handouts are being dished is among the many eyesores irking the youth.

The cynical attitude by the top Kenya Kwanza leaders towards the burdened taxpayer and the insensitive display of opulence and extravagance in the face of scarcity are at the heart of the current public outrage, especially among the unemployed youth.

Historian Macharia Munene says the Gen Z protests are now a wasted opportunity that the government could have used to turn things around. Instead, the youth still feel betrayed.

Political scholars further argue that the betrayed youth were cynically mobilised by President Ruto himself, from brazen false promises of jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities through his “hustler” campaign that focused on transformational change and youth empowerment.

President Ruto, who was at the time serving as Deputy President, trumpeted the “hustler vs dynasty” narrative, pitting the rich versus the poor, portraying himself as the latter’s much-awaited champion. And they believed in his narrative.

Three years later, promises for free primary school education now appear to be a pipe dream. Parents will now be expected to pay for, among other things, examination fees, an expense they have never shouldered before.

Kenya Kwanza also promised to have connected all schools to the Internet for improved learning outcomes, which now appears to have been a far-fetched dream.

Apart from issues affecting the youth, there was also a lot of discontent in the general population, including the agriculture and transport sectors, and among the ordinary households, where the cost of living is unbearable.

Another midterm promise was a structured career progression in the civil service, where reports of nepotism and skewed hiring in places like the Kenya Revenue Authority, the police, and the Teachers Service Commission, among other entities, are now more entrenched.

“Letters for the hiring of teachers are now being dished out at State House like never before. Only MPs supporting the government are getting these allocations,” says Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka.

The youth are wondering what happened to the promises of jobs, because they are now being told to apply for work in foreign countries. Labour Minister Alfred Mutua has, in the meantime, urged the thousands of applicants on waiting lists to be patient for the jobs.

On a positive note, the government has continued with the fertilizer subsidy programme started by President Mwai Kibaki, in his first term.

The subsidy has boosted maize and general crop production, but other lofty promises like the revamping of cotton ginneries, the reviving of textile industries, and the protection of local fabric industries remain unfulfilled.

The government also promised to provide enough clean water for domestic consumption through the adoption of model large water reservoirs by shifting focus to household and community projects from large dams.

As it stands, nothing much has been done, apart from a few ongoing dams and water pan projects in arid and semi-arid areas that were taken over from the previous administration.

The promise to strengthen the jua kali sector to help artisans produce high-quality products for industrial use and construction has also not begun. Neither has the pledged financial support for the boda-boda sector through the Hustler Fund.

Prof Munene says these are the issues that made parents join their children or support them in their rebellion, which was spontaneous.