Mr President, take responsibility of Wednesday's deaths, destruction

The aftermath of what was meant to be a sacred day to remember and honour tens of young people senselessly killed during the Gen Z protest against Finance Bill 2024 must prick the conscience of the nation. Not surprisingly, the blame game between the warring factions has been first and furious.

As before, analysing an emotive issue like the deadly confrontation witnessed this past Wednesday is a risky venture. It can turn even a very balanced assessment of events to be misconstrued as a partisan view, depending on which side of the divide one stands on.

Nonetheless, in critical moments of history, even a lone voice can be the right one amidst a sea of misinformation and propaganda.

It is for this reason that in today’s article, we shall attempt to explore the deeper insights that emerge from the events of Wednesday. Regardless of which side one may support, there are five  realities that we will have to carry going forward. These realities must shape the discourse out of the quagmire that pits the government against her own people.

One, a day that was meant to honour our fallen heros from last year for standing against an aloof government, has led to more needless deaths.

While leaders on both camps trade accusations, the reality remains that several families have been robbed of their loved ones indefinitely. Many other young people and security officers will have to bear scars of the atrocities of the day for the remainder of their lives.

The questions here are: did we have to get to this? Is it true that nothing could have been done to avert this human tragedy? How many lives are too many for our political elites to come back to their senses?

Hard work

Two, hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs are counting their losses, both private and public properties have been looted, vandalised or reduced into ashes. These are real livelihoods, sources of employment and years of hard work laid to waste in a matter of hours. We can only imagine the pain and grief that these folks have to endure watching their lives ruined.

On this matter, neither the organisers nor the protesters themselves can claim complete innocence.

While it is true that goons have been used to cause chaos or discredit peaceful protests, social media has documented instances of would be protestors vandalising businesses, skirting away stolen properties or attacking visibly injured security officers. At this juncture, we must salute parts of the country that honoured our dead in peaceful protests.

These acts of violence provides ground for authorities to justify police brutality or claim political mileage from accusations of anarchists. This leads us to the third issue on responsibilities of protests organisers and the limits of the law itself. The question here is: does the Constitution offer guarantees on rights and freedom to protest and picket without responsibility?

For instance, while it was clear the protests will be held, was the primary grievance and the intended outcome made clear to protestors? Was it to honour fallen comrades from June 2024 or match to State House?  

This lack of clarity on the agenda of the day possibly explains the divergent behaviours of protestors in different parts of the country. It potentially exposes a lack of strategic thought and organisational capacity on the part of the organisers.

For example, while Article 37 guarantees rights and freedoms to protests, picket and present petitions to any public authority, other sections of the law clearly designates certain public installations as protected areas and defines hours of the day within which the rights above can be exercised.

Can protesters exercise one while violating the other without losing credulity?

A keen observer would have noticed that unlike the 2024 protests, no advisory was provided on the time to go home or keep off from protected areas. Despite the victory of entering Parliament last year, the Law Society of Kenya and well known civil society actors had clearly warned on the issue of protected areas and time to end street protests then. So far, only Busia Senator Okiya Omtata has publicly affirmed that he was opposed to the idea of attempting to breach State House security. For this, he has received some considerable bashing on social media.

The fourth issue is a matter that must make each one of us reflect deeply before undertaking any thoughtless action, whether as a protester, security officer, citizen or a leader in the country. In the melee of the events of the day, a photo has emerged on social media of a Gen Z protester who found himself in the same place with his mother, a security officer, who had been deployed in response to the protests.

If that trending picture is true, then it means this was a mother and her son on the opposing camps. A similar scenario (not quite sure how factual it was), that time not with a happy ending, a trending story last year was that one of the fallen young men, was the young brother of a security officer deployed to the scene. As the story goes, the officer learned of his brothers fate a little bit too late.

Security officers

Assuming these two scenes are true, one year apart, what are the olds that these are just mere coincidences? Could the God of the land be conveying something that we fail to notice? To the security officers, before you unleash excessive force or unnecessarily open your weapon of death, does it occur to you that the victim could be your own son or daughter? That the young people dying under police brutality are children of another parent, just like you? Flipping the coin to the protestors and cheering mob, does it occur that when you attack a security officer, that officer could be the dad, mum, husband, wife, brother or sister of your fellow protestor?

These scenarios remind us of how we a connected by chords of history as a people. They remind us of our individual and collective responsibilities of building the nation that we desire and deserve. It is a call to exercise our civic duties and responsibilities with a sense of decorum.

The fifth and final issue that we address here today is the question of misinformation and accountability. In difficult times like the ones we going through, truth becomes the first casualty at the altar of propaganda.

It is tragic when leaders and professionals becomes purveyors of these vices. Codes of ethics for each known profession demands any professional to stand with public interest when this is in conflict of private greed. The bar is the highest when an individual is elected into the highest office in the land.

Highest burden

Ultimately, when the events that led us into the tragic outcomes of June 2025 will be placed on the weighing scale, the highest burden of responsibility will tilt against President William Ruto. This is because first, he is the one who took oath of office and was conferred with the instruments of power and violence before the nation and the world.

Second, a year ago, at the scariest moment of his grip on power, he stood before the Gen Zs, the nation and the world again, to affirm that he has heard their grievances, and made commitments on a way out.

On this account, the president has not only reneged on each of his commitments, but also mocked those that have made some effort to critique him on the very measures he set himself!