Kenya's Gen Z protest is not about tribe but national outrage

Youths during Gen-Z anniversary protest in Kitengela, on June 25, 2025. [Jenipher Wachie, Standard]

The Gen Z-led protests that have surged across Kenya-including in the Saba Saba demonstrations on July 7, 2025-represent a seismic civic awakening. Young Kenyans have confronted the political establishment with an uncompromising call for accountability-on corruption, police brutality, and poor governance.

Yet, disturbingly, senior government officials have responded not with introspection, but with an old and dangerous tactic: ethnicisation. No longer just government-aligned voices-now those at the very apex of state power are suggesting that the protests are regionally or ethnically driven, rather than reflecting the breadth of national discontent. By casting the protests as an expression of tribal grievance rather than national outrage, the political elite hopes to divide, discredit, and derail a transformative movement.