Young Kenyans vow to continue fighting after brutal crackdown on protests

A paramedic walks to an ambulance next to the body of a dead demonstrator near parliament during a protest against tax hikes in Nairobi, Kenya on 25 June 2024. (Photo: Samson Otieno)

By Kristin Engel

11 Jul 2024

Three weeks have passed since protests against a finance Bill erupted across Kenya, largely led and initiated by young people. Protesters were killed, injured, arrested and abducted, while others went into hiding after their lives were threatened.

Warning: This story contains graphic images that may upset sensitive readers.

At the peak of the anti-finance Bill protests in Kenya — when parliament was stormed on 25 June — I was attending the IUCN’s Africa Conservation Forum in Nairobi, about 10km away from the chaos unfolding in the CBD.

young kenyans defiant tear gas A tear gas canister explodes as protesters try to help injured people outside the Kenyan Parliament in Nairobi on 25 June 2024 during a nationwide strike to protest against a tax hike and financial Bill. (Photo: Samson Otieno)

With a military presence on almost every street, dozens of young people were killed that Tuesday. Journalists and activists were targeted and abducted as they stood against deep-seated corruption, lies and misgovernance.

The conference was cancelled early that day, resuming as normal on Wednesday and on Thursday when protest action continued again and families gathered in morgues, looking for loved ones who never returned after the protests.

The response from authorities was brutal. They used tear gas, live ammunition and force to disperse the gatherings. Police brutality was captured on video and shared widely. According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, by 1 July, 39 people had died, 361 were injured, and there had been 32 cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances. A total of 627 protesters had been arrested and many more were in hiding.

young kenyans defiant Protesters try to help injured people outside the Kenyan Parliament in Nairobi Kenya on 25 June 2024 during a nationwide strike to protest against a tax hike and financial Bill. (Photo: Samson Otieno)

In response, President William Ruto withdrew the finance Bill that would have brought “unlivable” tax increases and directed that further austerity measures be taken to reduce expenditure, starting with the government.

“I direct that operational expenditure in the Presidency be reduced to remove allocations for the confidential vote, reduce travel budget, hospitality and buying of vehicles, renovations and other expenditures,” the president said.

Ruto said the National Treasury was reorganising the budget to accommodate the new reality and that this would include budgets being cut substantially to “balance between what is to be implemented and what can wait”.

But young Kenyans say they will not forget or forgive.

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The past three weeks have been the most challenging of Ruto’s two-year stint as president as he battles to satisfy the demands of the nation’s people burdened by escalating living costs and the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce deficits.

Huge crackdown

Geoffrey Mboya, a young activist and community organiser in Nairobi, told Daily Maverick that there had been a huge crackdown by the government on activists, influencers, journalists and protesters.

young kenyans defiant body The body of a protester, covered by the Kenyan flag, lies on a pavement. (Photo: Samson Otieno)

“Rogue officers were out there witch-hunting key people that they deem have organised all these and I want to tell you clearly, we don’t have a leader. This is a passionate team of Kenyans that have come together and decided, we are very tired, we are frustrated, and we need to call out this government. We need to be brave, bold and reclaim our country,” Mboya said.

“I have seen lots of dead bodies. I've seen bodies that have been sprayed with bullets. I’ve seen my friend lose three fingers in Kenyatta Hospital. I saw a lady who was shot in the abdomen. I have seen a guy who was sprayed with more than eight bullets on his body… I’ve seen so many scary things. I’m having mental breakdowns. It’s horrible.”

“I have seen someone who was shot, reportedly by a sniper, and his brain spilt on the streets. It’s completely horrific. It’s insane. There are bodies lying at City Mortuary, the bodies that were lying in the streets, next to one of the most important buildings.

“Government should be ashamed as they kill people right next to and even inside parliament. It’s horrific, unacceptable and must be highly condemned. It has brought me a lot of tears, anger, and fear,” he said.

Mboya said he could barely sleep because of flashbacks he’d been having of dead bodies, “seeing all that blood that was spilt in the street of innocent young people asking the government to listen to them. Seeing a medic who was volunteering to assist injured people, also getting killed and shot.

Uzoma Odera (31), a protester and entrepreneur from Kisumu in the western part of Kenya, described the fear and chaos at the demonstrations.

“On Tuesday [25 June], about 10 of us had got to the central business district at around 1.30pm or so, and around 3pm once people had reached parliament, things were burning. We were getting information from WhatsApp groups and our parents that goons were coming in, heading down into town.

“On another side, there’s a group of goons coming down — and you could tell that these are people who are coming to cause havoc. Now we needed to get [away] and I ran into them when I was leaving town. People were now running. There were no Ubers. But we got on to boda bodas [small motorbikes] and found the whole road barricaded. It was a scary time,” he said.

Mboya said the protests were about “reassessing our government … reassessing the representative who should place people’s priority at heart, who should consult directly [with] their people before having to pass Bills that will come along with [their] own implications and further deep and unbearable economic shocks that poor Kenyans are experiencing.”

He said Kenyans wanted fresh elections.

young kenyans defiant A paramedic walks to an ambulance next to the body of a demonstrator near parliament during a protest against tax hikes in Nairobi, Kenya on 25 June 2024. (Photo: Samson Otieno)

“We want a whole new approach in terms of how this government will be accountable to its citizens. We are looking at how our taxpayers’ money is being spent. We’re looking at the huge allocations that [government officials] have given themselves.

“We’re rejecting totally how this government functions and we want options. We want to try and bring that into a reality, and it’s going to happen. We are more determined. This is the most defining moment in our chapter. Our forefathers really fought hard for this to happen, but we are a generation that will make it a reality,” he said.

Odera said getting the Finance Bill withdrawn was just the first aspect.

“The question we’ve always asked is that we don’t even have our basics — lighting in the roads, your city, everything doesn’t function, our healthcare system is messed up.

“One thing the governor was trying to do for Nairobi, was to limit businesses to just having one business permit. [At present], if you’re running a water company, you have to apply for seven different types of permits and each permit costs between 5,000 (R700) to 10,000 shillings; by the time you’re setting up just your permits, you’ve already spent 50,000 to 100,000 shillings. And with the system, you always have to bribe to try to get your things done,” he said

Odera said that people were not just fighting to reject the finance Bill and for economic freedom, but for the young lives lost over the past weeks, for the killings going on at night in the slums, for the people being silenced and for the people having to check the morgues when a loved one went missing.

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“It’s gotten to a dictatorship point where we now know it’s going back to the Moi days,” Odera said, referring to Kenya’s former president Daniel arap Moi, who reigned for more than 20 years.

“That is why our parents at first were really scared about this, because Moi did that in his days. If you spoke against the government, you were taken away, taken to the chambers, tortured, or you were just killed in the forest and disposed of. But our parents are now seeing that we as millennials and Gen Zs don’t have that fear,” Odera said.

“But the main thing is that we’ve got to a point where Ruto’s lies have been exposed. People don’t believe anything he says any more. Even when he’s saying that every person has the right to protest on the streets peacefully, without force … and then when shootings happen and all, he flips the script and then says us protesters are treasonous and we are criminals.

“We don’t believe in you, we don’t believe in your system, and we don’t trust you. There’s no transparency,” said Odera.

The ‘hustler nation’

Another protester, Charlton Epiche (24), said that before Ruto came to power, there was a history of mismanagement of funds in Kenya. When Ruto came into power, he committed to bettering the lot of the people.

Epiche said that after being in power for two years, Ruto borrowed more money from the IMF, which was behind the finance Bill.

He said there was a sense of betrayal from Ruto’s government.

“Our vote, our trust in leadership, has been taken for granted for the longest time.”

Epiche said Ruto had failed to live up to the promises he made in his manifesto to uplift the “hustlers” — the informal sector, which is the biggest area of employment.

Ruto, who is one of the country’s richest citizens, campaigned on a commitment to uplift ordinary Kenyans rather than elite families that have dominated the country’s politics for decades.

“The finance Bill, in a sense, actually existed to hurt the hustler nation,” said Epiche.

“I don’t see whether Ruto is going to be impeached or step down, but I see there’s going to be a shift in terms of how politicians treat people, in terms of how parliamentarians treat the people who vote for them,” he said. DM

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Huge crackdown