Gen Z gene out of the bottle and saying what the majority desire

 

When anxiety was for nothing; expectations didn’t mean anything; ambitions went unnoticed; celebrations were short-lived; and as anger died down in this age of GenZs, we must as a country, deeply reflect whether the covenant to live together is a façade that favours only some, or is a bedsheet meant to cover all of us.

The Constitution professes that the Sovereign isn’t the government but the people of Kenya. For orderly existence, Kenyans temporarily donate, in doses of five years each time, representation to kindred through an election.

But there is a sneaking worst form of autocracy when the three Arms of Government – Parliament, Judiciary and the Executive – connive to short-change citizens. It’s dictatorship.

Gen Z have awakened a goading feeling that representation can be deceit for tyranny if eternal vigilance is not exercised. Often forgotten is that the first option in the exercise of sovereignty in Article 2 is not through elected representatives but that the people may exercise their sovereign power directly.

The reality that Kenyans retain the original sovereignty and can withdraw loaned power to representatives at any time was brought home by the simmering “GenZ rebellion”. But it doesn’t appear we got the GenZ message; a call to moral probity girded by merit and integrity in the State system of rewards and punishment.

The government missed the point and cowed under fear of being ousted when GenZ’s only demand was to “listen to our viewpoint”, with the poignant underlying moral that governance ought and should proceed with rectitude. Avoid precipitous impulses.  But did we learn? I doubt. We addressed the symptoms of the rot thinking firing the Cabinet will appease the country. One area in which the government has dismally failed is communication. Who communicates what, when and how for the government when the President must speak on mundane things while the rest of the edifice appears to suspiciously have taken a replica Omega oath of silence?

Is it that the President has deliberately crowded out every other government functionary from the communication space? Or is it instilled fear of the unknown that the President has no communication backup? I think it’s both; unknown to the President the problem of the imposed “concurrence” edict demanded by echelons in his office as a management tool in Public Service is his undoing.

The problem he faces isn’t underperforming Cabinet Secretaries but an overbearing senior civil service cadre that forces decisions to be funnelled to only one centre. Unless the President dismisses this cog, he can only expect the same impaired government. The GenZ are clear; they want clearness on debt that burdens Kenyans, high cost of living, unemployment albatross, and defunct healthcare and education systems.

First aid was mistaken for surgery. Opportunism, not determined and principled attention to the cause of the youth revolt, ruled the day in the reconstituted Cabinet. This way, the loyalty of incorporated ODM ministers is always going to be other than to the appointing authority. Indeed, one Wycliffe Oparanya, already showed his hand; he will not take instructions from his new boss, at the pain of resigning.

The GenZs took to the streets against disrespect of abstentious and opulence display of newly minted millionaires in government.  

Burdened by unemployment and their parents’ lack of livelihoods, GenZ have exposed an enduring criminality at the centre of government; ghost workers and employment of persons with fake credentials, at the expense of qualified Kenyans.  

The GenZs have woken a gene in Kenyans that will be extremely difficult to bottle, again, if they stay the course. They have summarised what Kenyans have been struggling to tell government. The GenZ streets are not enough. They should not sleep on the laurels of awakening Kenyans.

Yes, they have the numbers but it all depends on how they use them. The 2027 elections are going to be hedged against the determination, planning and participation of GenZs.