August 8 – Nane nane protests by Gen Z has not been much of a crescendo has had it not been spread online for the past two weeks. This marked another series of protests led by youth that have rocked the country for the past two months.
Previously this protest has yielded results despite heavy casualties and loss of properties. Thursday has been short of what we are used to seeing in Gen Z demos.
First it’s almost Nairobi alone that has witness this demonstrations and that too with a very low turn out. Very few individuals accessed the capital city central area and had engaged with the police in a cat and mouse chase with teargas being lobbed to scatter the crowds.
At the end of last week police commanders in the region had held a series of meetings to strategies on ways to deal with Thursdays protest. Kenya’s acting police chief Gilbert Masengeli had warned on Wednesday that “criminals” intended to infiltrate the demonstrations and advised people to stay away from protected zones such as the airport and Ruto’s official residence and take precautions in crowded areas.
Earlier today police were dispatched to various roads leading to and from the city. There were road blocks and at some point during the day all PSVs and any other public transport vehicle were prevented from reaching Nairobi CBD. Some arrests were also made regarding the use of smartphones to film, police had claimed that posting demonstration videos was fuelling more youths to throng into Nairobi CBD.
Some other parts of the country that have been fully active in protests in the past weeks have been peaceful Thursday and the residents continued with their normal businesses, this included Nyanza, Nakuru and Coast regions.
Read: President Ruto defends bringing ODM in the government
Residents of both Nyanza and Coastal regions are happy that some of their trusted person’s are now part of Rutos governance after they were assigned duties as cabinet secretaries. With this, they are contented and claim they are willing to give time to president and whoever does not like should wait until 2027 so that they can kick him out through the Ballot.
Things will never be the same
With the Gen Z demonstrations a lot of things have changed in the Kenyan political landscape. What began with politicians disregarding it as just a mere protest turned to a high scale demonstration with the protesters managing to enter the Parliament.
Gen Zs pressurized Kenya Kwanza regime to among other things reject the 2024 finance bill, show accountability in government projects, reducing wastage of public resources, dissolving of the cabinet and dealing with the corrupt politicians as well as doing away with some of irrelevant positions in the government. A section of demonstrators also demanded for resignation of President William Ruto.
Also read: Government extends scholarship application deadline
President William Ruto was forced to make some changes due to this pressure, first he had the finance bill totally rejected. He scrapped away budget allocation to the offices of both the first lady and that of spouces of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Prime Cabinet secretary Musalia Mudavadi.
He also dissolved his cabinet and formed a new one incorporating opposition leaders in it. Thursday demos were ongoing as he was overseeing their swearing in of new CSs at the Statehouse.
He also proposed various policies including barring leaders from contributing money in harambees.
With all this, the biggest thing that remains is the high rate of unemployment and poverty levels with 52 million people falling in this grid.
