When State goes rogue: Kenyans protest against Executive excesses

A man being clobbered by ant-riot police during anti-Finance Bill protests along Parliament Road on June 25, 2024. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

As the nation picks up the pieces of two weeks that have seen the best and worst of its democracy, it is the harrowing images of lifeless Kenyans lying on the streets of Nairobi and of a dead child punctured by police bullets that will linger.

Those, and images of plainclothes police officers, masked and roaming in unmarked vehicles, unapologetically shooting live bullets and tear gas directly at people, including medical personnel and journalists.

Such was the force that met thousands of young Kenyans who bravely took to the streets to protest tax hikes in the Finance Bill 2024. It was an expression of their constitutional right to picket, which conveyed that power truly rested with the masses.

Indeed, the Kenyan youth, drawn from Generations Z and Y (millennials), forced President William Ruto to drop the unpopular Bill, pushed through Parliament amid indifference and chest-thumping by opulent-flaunting Kenya Kwanza allies.

Armed with placards, white handkerchiefs and "we are peaceful" clarion calls, calm protesters were met with brute force. Across the country, police officers dispersed protesters with live bullets, tear gas and water cannons (in Nairobi).

Police killings

The brutality escalated on June 20, which saw the killing of Rex Kanyike Masai, a protester who was part of a group retreating as police officers chased. Twenty-one-year-old Evans Kiratu also died that Thursday.

A video clip of Rex's alleged shooting has been shared online with calls made to trace the officer who opened fire on the retreating crowd.  It is alleged that the officer was the one captured on camera shooting a tear gas canister directly at journalists.

While the Independent Policing Oversight Authority has taken up investigations into the killings, no assurance of investigations has come from the government and its investigative agencies. On Wednesday, President Ruto only said those killed in the protest would be "accounted for", although he did not say whether those involved would be prosecuted.

The first week's brutality was only a prelude to the carnage that followed last week. In plain sight, police officers fired live bullets at protesters approaching Parliament Buildings on Tuesday. The aftermath was a headless body lying on the streets and others with blown-up heads. Maimings, too.

In Nairobi alone, more than 20 Kenyans died on that dark Tuesday, with more than 100 injured. More Kenyans across the country, heeding the call to make their voices heard, lost their lives on that day.

Ruto has only acknowledged the death of six, denying, against evidence, incidences of extra-judicial killings, admitted later by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

There were reports that snipers had been set loose on Kenyans, an indictment of the government's commitment to respecting human rights.

The President would follow a familiar script, congratulating the National Police Service for its conduct, which casts doubt on the government's intention to bring rogue police officers to book. On his part, Gachagua insisted that those responsible must be held to account, blaming spy boss Noordin Haji for the bloodbath.

Last Thursday would witness its share of brutality, with the killing of a child in Rongai, highlighting the senselessness that is systemic within the police service.  

"To our men and women in uniform, why do you allow yourselves to be used and abused?" Thirdway Alliance party leader Ekuru Aukot posed on X.

The answer could be they choose to because of a culture that allows it to sweep atrocities under the carpet, enabled by an Executive with a chokehold on security agencies.

Kenya is yet to witness justice for anti-government protesters killed in opposition demonstrations last year. Top officers in command who bear overall responsibility, such as Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome, remain in office courtesy of a broken system that shields them from accountability.

Police officers have also enabled criminal activities. On Thursday, the police watched as armed militia intimidated locals of Nairobi and Eldoret. President Ruto has been silent about the goons, whose actions have always seemed sanctioned by the State. When armed goons invaded properties belonging to former President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga last year, the police watched.

Calls to arrest and prosecute rogue officers have often fallen on deaf ears courtesy of the "congratulatory" approach the presidency has perennially adopted, which sees and hears no evil, at least among security agencies. Their eyes are not blind to acts of violence by the general public, which is often a result of provocation.

The State's endorsement of the police's actions has made them immune to accountability. In the past week, Kenyans have witnessed State-sanctioned abductions of social media influencers who supported the anti-tax protests even as the State restricted internet connectivity to suppress dissent.

By describing the mental torture-inducing abductions, mostly conducted by heavily-armed plainclothes officers, as police arrests, the Head of State seemingly okayed a dangerous pattern that violates the Constitution as it strips the "arrested" person of their constitutional rights. 

"When they (abductees) come out, most are visibly very shaken," Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Faith Odhiambo said in an interview on Spice FM yesterday. She also lamented about police brutality against lawyers who sought to represent detained protesters.

"I feel like we are going to a very dark era in our country," Ms Odhiambo added.

The masses are not entirely innocent. Ugly scenes of looting and arson, among other forms of destruction of property, only water down the legitimacy of protest, which, as the Constitution demands, must be peaceful.

The injuring of police officers, burning down of houses belonging to lawmakers and muggings of innocent Kenyans cannot be justified.

What started as peaceful demos to force the government to climb down degenerated into anarchy, with criminal gangs, some allegedly hired by politicians, infiltrating the marches to run riot across Kenya's towns and cities.

While the protesters are responsible for staying peaceful, the police should also protect demonstrators and non-protesters, warding off those seeking to take advantage of peaceful demos. But that is impossible in the hostile environment the police officers create by treating demonstrations as unlawful. 

"The violence that has been witnessed during the protests has been perpetuated by or as a reaction to excesses of police force and arbitrariness. While the disruption of both public and private property and infrastructure is unacceptable, there is no evidence to indicate the police are incapable of containing their duties within the limitations of the law," the LSK president observed in the wake of the Kenya Defence Forces' deployment to quell anti-Ruto protests.

As he watched the invasion of Parliament and the Supreme Court by protesters on Tuesday, Ruto could only see "a desecration" of constitutional institutions. Indeed, the desecration happened long before the young Kenyans stormed the august House in a show of their diminished confidence in their elected representatives.

Parliament, a body meant to watch the Executive's excesses, traded its independence to a President hell-bent on having his way. Since his election, Ruto has asserted dominance on the august House, rendering lawmakers helpless against his wishes. 

"The celebral desecration of Parliament, which cultivates a mindset in which the people's representatives do not undertake their responsibilities in fidelity to the Constitution, is worse than the physical desecration," observed constitutional lawyer Bobby Mkangi.

Gachagua's revelations of planned reprisals against those who opposed the Finance Bill confirm that Parliament is not independent now and even during Uhuru's tenure.

Kenyans, interested in recalling lawmakers who have let them down, cannot happen because of the absence of an electoral commission, courtesy of the hijacking of the recruitment process by political players.

Smear campaign

When he launched a smear campaign against the Judiciary last year, the Head of State actively participated in discrediting the courts among the masses.

A section of judicial officers have not done their institution any favours. Some have been outed for taking bribes to influence their decisions and frustrate justice while others have been faulted for unlawful rulings. And hence the consistent calls for reform within the Chief Justice Martha Koome-led arm of government.

The Executive is not exactly independent. Courtesy of an insatiable appetite for debt, it has ceded its decision-making responsibility to international lenders, as pointed out by Kenyans who have urged a rejection of the International Monetary Fund's imposition of harsh policies on Kenya.

The young Kenyans who protested have proposed reforming the country's critical institutions. They have also pledged to end the endemic ethnicity that has previously pushed the nation to the brink.

Through their tribeless movement, they have led the way. But the political class, who have long profited from stoking ethnic divisions, seem reluctant to leave their backward ways. A day after Gachagua's assault on Haji, politicians from the Northern region protested what they viewed as targeting their "son", a language meant to arouse ethnic passions.