I begin this column by honouring the fallen, the young lives cut short by police bullets, the brave citizens maimed for daring to speak truth to power, and those still lying in hospital beds, their bodies bearing the scars of a government’s violent contempt.
These are not nameless statistics. They are sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, Kenyans whose only ‘crime’ was believing they had the right to protest injustice.
Let us speak their names, remember their faces, and vow that their suffering will not be buried under spin. They stood unarmed, yet unafraid. The State responded not with dialogue, but with death. And no propaganda can cleanse that stain.
There is nothing commercial, transactional, or opportunistic about people rising to protest police killings and State brutality. No one walks into live bullets for business.
No one chants against power while ducking tear gas for profit. The suggestion, now repeated by government spokespeople and sympathisers, is that these protests are a form of “economic sabotage” that is not just a lie. It is a cowardly, fascist deflection from the real issue: That the Kenyan government is murdering its citizens in broad daylight.
Over the past year, but especially in recent weeks, we have witnessed a State that no longer pretends to serve its people. A regime that once promised a “bottom-up” revolution has instead turned its boots downward, crushing the very people it pledged to uplift.
Generation Z, Kenya’s most politically awakened demographic in decades, has simply refused to be silenced. Their resistance is not violent. It is not looting. It is not criminality. It is the cry of a people fed up with being governed through fear and fraud.
Yes, the economic pain Kenyans are protesting is real. But these demonstrations are not simply about shillings and cents. They are about dignity. About accountability. About the right not to be killed by police for demanding better governance.
They are about a government that rolls out taxes without adequate public participation. That hires goons to assault peaceful protesters. That sends elite squads not to protect life and property but to break bones and spirits.
When confronted with this truth, what does the regime do? It doubles down on lies. It brands young Kenyans as foreign-funded mercenaries. It invokes “public order” to justify bloodshed. It blames NGOs, the diaspora, and imaginary “economic enemies” rather than acknowledging the rot at the heart of its administration.
But let’s face it, no amount of spin will change the facts. People are dying. They are dying not because they attacked the State, but because they dared to speak to it.
A government that kills instead of listening has already lost the argument. A leadership that fears questions more than it fears bullets has forfeited its moral legitimacy.
You cannot shoot your way out of failure. You cannot tear-gas your way out of accountability. You cannot label grieving mothers and outraged youth as “saboteurs” simply because they have found the courage to resist.
There is a name for what we are witnessing: State-sanctioned repression. This is not a breakdown of law and order. It is the deliberate weaponisation of law enforcement against citizens. It is a betrayal of the Constitution. Article 37 of our Constitution guarantees every Kenyan the right to assemble, demonstrate, picket, and petition. There is no fine print that nullifies this right when the President is uncomfortable.
And let us not forget who the real economic saboteurs are. They are not the youth chanting in the streets. They are the officials looting public coffers. They are the politicians staging billion-shilling harambees with unexplained wealth. They are the bureaucrats flying first class while hospitals go without gloves. They are the allies of power who make policy not to serve but to steal.
The resistance we are seeing today is not the problem. It is the response to decades of State violence, broken promises, and elite arrogance. The government’s violent reaction only confirms what many already know: This regime is more interested in protecting power than people. More focused on image than justice. More ready to kill than to reform.
But here is the hard truth for those in power: You cannot kill a generation into silence. You cannot scare people back into apathy. If anything, every bullet fired, every body buried, every protester jailed only strengthens the resolve of those fighting for a better Kenya.
We have reached a turning point. The youth are not waiting for political saviours. They are not pleading for crumbs. They are demanding structural change, and they are doing so in ways that are leaderless, decentralised, and impossible to suppress with the usual tricks of co-optation or coercion. That terrifies the ruling elite — and rightly so.
It is not the protesters who must retreat. It is the State that must reflect. It must account for every life lost. It must bring rogue police officers to justice. It must stop hiding behind the veil of “security” to justify executions. And it must, above all, remember that the power it wields comes from the people — not from guns, not from foreign praise, and certainly not from lies.
History has a long memory. And it will remember who stood where. It will remember the silence of those who should have spoken. The complicity of those who spun the truth. The brutality of those who fired without provocation. And the bravery of a generation that refused to be trampled.
The government can unleash as much violence as it wants. It can arrest, threaten, and even kill. But what it cannot do is bury the truth. The blood on its hands will not wash off. Not with statements, not with state TV propaganda, and not with silence. Only justice can cleanse this nation. Justice begins with listening to the cries in the streets. Not silencing them.
By Gitobu Imanyara