Young people's struggle for a better Kenya must continue

I am a Kenyan youth, and I speak to you as such. We have all witnessed monumental changes with regard to how young Africans engage with and challenge power over the past three years. Popular currents against political injustice and economic inequality have massively shifted the political landscape in many African countries, leaving several regimes on the back foot. Transnational solidarity efforts among activists and community organisers, which are anchored on both online and offline organising, have simultaneously resulted in increased cross-border collaboration between security agencies that are hell-bent on stifling the winds of change that this generation has birthed and thrust upon society. What is the way forward for African youth at this juncture?

The Gen Z protests in Kenya, which began as protests against an unpopular 2024 Finance Bill, quickly morphed into a #MustGo moment that shook the very foundations of the state. Beyond Kenya, these protests inspired fresh waves of imagination and action across the political landscape in countries like Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique and Madagascar – and its reverberations were felt as far away as Nepal.

A majority of analyses and studies about all these protests have arrived at one conclusion – that these protests were just and righteous. And they still are.

Regimes across the East African region lack substantive responses to legitimate demands around social questions like the provision of healthcare and education, the high cost of living, freedom of expression, and electoral freedom, among others. Lacking concrete responses to these demands that arise from below, these regimes often resort to violence as a measure of last resort and violate fundamental human rights in the process.

Eastern Africa is today one of the most undemocratic regions of Africa. The politicisation of security agencies across the region has morphed into a combined effort aimed at thwarting tides of dissent, and is marked by cross-border espionage, abductions, torture and even killings of those who speak truth to unjust power. It is indeed clear that the systems of oppression in this region are interconnected and transnational in nature.

Tundu Lissu, a prominent Tanzanian opposition leader, has been in jail for almost two years on charges of treason. In Uganda, Kizza Besigye still faces treason charges since his abduction in Nairobi two years ago. In Rwanda, opposition leader Victoire Ingabire is in jail on charges of subversion. In South Sudan, opposition leader Riek Machar is under house arrest on allegations of treason. Burundi has no opposition to talk about, as the ruling party ‘won’ all seats in its 100-member Parliament in the 2025 elections. In Ethiopia, prominent opposition leaders are either in jail or in exile. Kenya, which is regarded as a forerunner in democratic processes in the region, has arbitrarily arrested, disappeared, or killed scores of youth following the last round of protests in June 2025 and June 2026. Somalia, meanwhile, is a victim of forces that are both internal and external to it.

History shows us that, in as much as repression might temporarily halt the streams and rivers of change, these rivers can equally swell into floods of revolt capable of sweeping aside anyone and anything that stands in the way of change.

In June 2024, young Kenyans came out to the streets to demand a rebirth of the Republic. They simply desired freedom from the shackles of a government that was intent on condemning them to poverty and hopelessness. At the height of these protests, politicians drawn from the dominant political parties tried to ‘advise’ Kenyan youth to abandon their set course, and to instead seek the electoral pathway.

Dominant political parties in Kenya, however, only engage youth periodically out of a necessity that is anchored on prevailing economic and political interests at particular points in time. A majority of Kenyan youth recognise this, and have increasingly been coalescing around the so-called smaller parties. The Ruto-UDA regime has, however, realised the inherent danger that this political shift represents and has been clawing back.

That is why efforts by Kenyan youth to organise themselves within political parties have recently been scattered by state machinery. Ukweli Party, for instance, was de-registered by the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties at the beginning of 2026 because the regime in power believes that it might be a potential political home for Gen Z and other Kenyan youth.

To Kenyan youth, we are children of struggle. We are the grandchildren of Dedan Kimathi, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kwame Nkrumah, Winnie Mandela, Amilcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Joe Slovo, John Garang’ de Mabior, and all those who came into being before us - they who immersed themselves in struggles against domination and oppression.

This generation finds itself at a juncture where the old social order is dying, and the new is struggling to be born. This, as Antonio Gramsci taught us, is the interregnum.

Comrades and compatriots, our struggle is a just and righteous struggle. It is a struggle aimed at ensuring that all in society have access to basic services such as education and healthcare. It is a struggle to ensure that we can freely interact and speak without the fear of arrest or abduction. We are simply asking for the opportunity to be allowed to thrive and to enable the growth of our countries. Our generational demands as African youth are simple and clear - our struggle is a struggle for justice and dignity.

Let me make this clear. No single individual from our generation or those that preceded us has approached the Kenyan government, or any other African government, to demand a holiday in the Caribbean islands. Kenyans have simply been asking for basic rights like healthcare, education, an affordable cost of living, freedom of expression, and the right to life. Demanding these rights has, however, become punishable by death using bullets bought using our taxes, as evidenced by the killings of Rex Masai, Eric Shieni, Brian Odhaimbo, Caroline Shiramba, and many other compatriots.

Our generation must move beyond repression to resistance. We must recognise that we have a generational and historical responsibility to birth a new society – a society that can at the minimum guarantee peace, justice and dignity for all. We must register and vote in the 2027 elections.