If President William Ruto thought he could ram through Parliament any laws as he pleases, much as our first two presidents did without fear or concern, Gen Z demonstrators have reminded him they will not tolerate it.
The question is, how did we get here? It was only the other day the President had a highly acclaimed state visit to the US, a stark contrast to its current disapproval of his security actions. Despite the controversy surrounding the trip, it was largely seen as a success, repositioning Kenya at the forefront of Africa.
Make no mistake about it: every African president would have wanted to get the high honour Ruto received as a guest of US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Ruto and Biden had high-level talks. President Ruto and First Lady Rachel Ruto were given an elegant dinner unlike any given to an African leader in recent times.
Only a short time later, youthful demonstrators were shot dead by police in the streets, a horror to behold, tragic not just for the innocent deaths, but also for what is to come, regardless of how this ends.
When Ruto addressed the nation on Tuesday night, he called the day’s tragic events - including setting fires in Parliament and Nairobi headquarters -'treasonous'. He also said he was putting on notice the “planners, financiers, orchestrators, abettors of violence and anarchy,” adding the military had been deployed across the country “in response to the security emergency caused by the ongoing violent protests.”
Ominous words that can only mean the worst is yet to happen because, if the Ruto government is like ALL other governments in Africa—and indeed most parts of the world, there will likely be an overreaction on many fronts with dire consequences.
If they had not already compiled a list of people he and his government believe are behind the protest violence, as of the moment the President addressed the nation, they are working 24-7 to find them now.
All well and good from the “law and order” perspective, but if history is anything to go by, such lists are riddled with all manner of peril for both sides. Even if one were to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are individuals the President described as behind these demonstrations - separating those who may have been be involved for good cause from those involved for nefarious reasons - arresting then will not be easy.
The net outcome is governments being governments, especially the brutal ones; the temptation is to lump everyone in the same pot and cook them at the same time.
This, in turn, will engender even more bitterness and resentment from the communities most affected by any punitive measures of the sort President Ruto warned of, in no time, you will have unending strife, hopelessness, and violence that cannot be sustained.
It doesn’t have to go in that direction, if sober minds to prevail.
Rather, Ruto can go back to the drawing board, sack some deadwood in his government, take corruption head-on, and bring in sharp minds and resourceful people who can help him turn things around.
But even that alone cannot turn things around. Rather, members of the National Assembly, most of whom don’t care about constituents as they rubber stamp the President’s will, must take the riots as wake-up call and take their responsibilities seriously as the people’s servants. It is pitiful that social media is describing many of them as busy rubber-stamping Ruto’s punitive tax policies. They have done so not based on any principle but on account of “incentives” doled by the government.
This surely must come to an end, and let us have a Parliament that, in fact, deliberates and passes laws designed to help the masses and who have sent MPs to represent them in Parliament, instead of serving only the interests of a few.
Others say the “incentives” for those voting for the Finance Bill are simply serving their stomachs, neither of which is desirable at all.
One thing is clear for sure: going forward, it cannot be business as usual.