Kenyans must not give up their agitation for better governance

 

When a group of youth protested against the Finance Bill 2024 in Nairobi on July 2, 2024. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Various speakers at last Sunday’s Engage for Nuru Mugambi health fundraiser spoke about Kenya as if it was an extreme sport. Persistent enquiries into the resilience of my mental well-being this week got me thinking; how do we keep the audacity of hope alive amid such national disrespect and disillusionment?

Students threatened by new financial models. Dialysis patients and others with critical care needs are denied access to their National Health Insurance Fund benefits under the Social Health Insurance Fund. Families were ripped apart by the abductions, disappearances and deaths of their barely adult children. Kenyan police officers in Haiti face everyday risks, described as ‘tourists’ and still underfunded. While they remain preoccupied abroad, more than one Kenyan woman was killed every day for the last 90 days and we still think we don’t have a femicide epidemic.

Despite all this, it seems that the Executive and Parliament have not gleaned any insights from the hundreds who stormed Parliament on June 25. Barely four months later, hundreds of thousands were compelled to write and successfully reject Senator Samson Cherargei’s tone-deaf bill seeking to increase terms for the President, MPs, MCAs and Governors from 5 to 7 years.

Medical Services Principal Secretary Harry Kimtai advised those complaining about SHIF’s shortcomings to procure private health insurance this week. Opting out of SHIF is not optional, however. Yesterday, the nation and 2 million unemployed workers got the “day off” to watch one Kenyan get a new job. Our heads hurt and our hearts are broken daily by the few who have the power, authority and resources to make a difference in our lives, but don’t.

Personalised attacks

Avoiding three “isms” offers us emotional resilience and intellectual power in these times. Steer clear of “whataboutism”. It seeks to distract us from collectively focusing and transforming what matters to us. Stay away from cancel culture, “us and them” thinking, and personalised attacks. They are designed to reduce the space for us to make mistakes, grow new leaders or build new principled alliances. Keep at arm’s length those that offer “surrenderism” as a survival tactic. Ultimately, it paralyses our own imagination, voice, agency and soon our vote, in the hope that someone else will rescue Kenya.

Kenya has a proud history of struggle for democratic and accountable governance. The last four months remind us organised generations always rise to remind those in power they rule with our consent. The greatest threat to national stability is not a few politicians and NGOs but a state that is asleep at the wheel.

Three in five Kenyans are under the age of 25. They form the bulk of the population. Taking their pulse recently, Shujaaz Inc. found that 1 in 2 Kenyan youth feel the current government does not currently reflect their priorities or offer any hope for them. Deeply concerned, the number of youth willing to take part in a protest has doubled since June with 60 per cent of them feeling supported by their family and friends to do so. The negative impact of economic policy on their cost of living drives their frustrations.

With 73 per cent of them now triggered to vote in the next General Election, those that govern nationally and across the counties have only two annual policy and budgetary cycles to avoid a rout at the 2027 General Election. Here is where we must focus.

Next week, two-thirds of 350 million Americans go to the polls. Bishop William J. Barber II’s October 27 sermon to them is instructive for us also. If there is ever a time that Kenyans need a voice and a vote, that time is now. We must speak up, invest in and organise our communities to take back our public institutions as instruments of democratic accountability and justice. If we don’t, lizards will turn into crocodiles and the river will be unsafe for us all.

Kamukunji leader Abdul “Dades” Clive Wanguthi who died recently, knew this. He exemplified the power of community organising. May others step up to take his place.