When creative freedom is seen as a threat to political power

Butere Girls perform a play written by Cleophas Malalah during the Western Region edition of the annual Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival last week. [File, Courtesy]

On Friday, March 21, 2025, at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi, a team of thespians led the audience in a public reading of Parliament of Owls, a play by my friend Adipo Sidang’. Exactly a week later, in the company of Sidang’ and rapper Juliani at the University of Nairobi’s Taifa Hall, I sat through a two-hour lecture titled We Are Not Mentally Ill: Deconstructing the Mad Genius Trope in Literature,  by former serviceman, literature and law scholar Professor Peter Wasamba.

Not long afterwards, at the school-hosted drama and film festival in Nakuru, Kenya witnessed a  State-ordered ban on a play. Echoes of War, written and directed by former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala, was barred from performance.