A police officer fires tear gas at protesters on Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi during anti-Finance Bill protests on June 25, 2024.
The stage is being set for a series of high-profile arrests and arraignment of political players on treason charges, if claims by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki in a television interview are anything to go by. Kindiki told Citizen TV anchor Sam Gituku last Thursday that investigations into the Gen Z campaigns against the 2024 Finance Bill have zeroed in on a group that allegedly hijacked the initially peaceful protests as cover for attempted overthrow of the established constitutional order.
He cited the June 25 storming and brief occupation of the Houses of Parliament as part of an attempt to oust President William Ruto’s government, claiming that the plotters hailed from both sides of the political divide, the governing Kenya Kwanza coalition and opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja coalition. Kindiki’s allegations echo Ruto’s initial reaction to the violent turn of events that fateful Tuesday as treasonous acts by criminal elements.
He promised that the long arm of the law would come down heavy on the perpetrators, but the following day after a night of reflection and consultations moderated his tone, climbed down on the contentious taxation proposals, and promised to engage the protesting youth and listen to their concerns.
Living lavishly
He also unveiled a raft of spending cutbacks as part of the effort to both cover the budget hole on withdrawal of the Finance Bill, and also address widespread complaints that government officials were living lavishly while preaching austerity. While top security officials continued to insist that criminal elements had hijacked the Gen Z protests, Ruto also held out the olive branch to the youthful revolt, promising to convene a multi-sectoral forum to discuss national issues and to engage the youth on X Spaces.
Expectations that the government was abandoning the hardline stance in preference to dialogue — including referring to the youthful protestors as well-meaning patriots, releasing most of the suspected protest leaders and anti-government social media activists controversially abducted by masked policemen — were however undone by indications that the security agencies were obsessed with the theory that the ‘revolution’ was planned and financed by powerful political interests.
That was lent credence by Kindiki’s television interview which went late into the night last Thursday. The government has all along insisted that criminal elements who took advantage of the protests to cause mayhem would be caught and punished. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations, which under Ruto-appointee Amin Mohammed seems to have become an arm of the Kenya Kwanza political machinery, has downloaded and shared CCTV images from Parliament, street cameras and looted shops of persons it says are wanted criminals.
However, Kindiki’s assertions of an organised coup attempt raises the stakes considerably. Any attempt to remove the government by unlawful means amounts to treason, the most serious offense in the Penal Code. It attracts the death penalty. Kenya has never had a treason trial since the aftermath of the failed coup attempts by mutinous Kenya Air Force soldiers. The main coup plotters led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka were tried for treason found guilty and sentenced.
Their eventual execution by hanging at the Kamiti Prison in 1987 was also the last time the death sentence had been carried out in Kenya. Throughout his 24-year tenure, President Daniel arap Moi had declined to sign death warrants from court judgments on capital offense convictions for crimes such as murder and robbery with violence. Moi’s predecessor, Jomo Kenyatta, had also been sparing in application of the death sentence.
Treason charges
It awaits who is targeted for treason charges out of the Gen Z revolt. Kindiki was miserly on the details, pleading that the matter was still under investigation. He would not be drawn into whether the suspects were already in custody, or if they were senior politicians currently in office. All he would reveal is that they were personalities who had been on the radar for a while, some associating themselves with the governing party and others with the opposition.
There is no record, at time of writing, of any Members of Parliament or other senior politicians in custody, which would mean that either the suspects are still free, or way down the political food chain. Kindiki would also not say whether the suspects are known elected officials or leaders of any political outfits, only saying that the ‘aligned themselves’ to either Kenya Kwanza or Azimio, which is rather different from being actually in active elected or party leadership. One thing he did let out is that the suspects have previously hijacked demonstrations, such as the series called by Odinga after the 2022 elections, to go on looting and plunder rampages. He also revealed that some of them have previously been behind blockades of the Nairobi-Mombasa highway around the Emali area in Makueni County.
While alleging an organised attempt to overthrow the government, Kindiki’s explanations point to low-level functionaries rather than any serious coup attempt, though there may well be attempts to present them as agents of higher-up.
Dysfunctional government
Questions might be asked if conclusions of a coup are premature, or if the DCI and the National Intelligence Service are clutching at straws in attempts to link to senior politicians the normal criminal elements who always take advantage of the unrest to go on looting and robbery sprees. Wiper Party leader and Azimio coalition co-principal Kalonzo Musyoka is not impressed by Kindiki’s accusations. “Hogwash”, he responded to queries from The Weekly Review, on allegations of political forces hijacking the protests.
“These are government-sponsored goons,” he said, who were recruited and paid to go on orgies of destruction in order to paint the Gen Z protests in bad light and turn citizens against them. He went on to charge that Kindiki’s claims were just part of the so far unsuccessful attempts to link Ruto’s predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta to the protests, adding that it all reflection a divided and dysfunctional government, where some are also said to be pointing the finger at Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
It is instructive that Gachagua has himself come out publicly in sensational claims that the NIS Director-General Noordin Haji had been trying to pin the protest on him. Kindiki’s allegations came shortly after selective leaks to sections of the media by DCI and NIS operatives to the effect that investigators had settled on some prominent MPs as funders of the Gen Z protests. They were reportedly set to nab six politicians, a businessman and officials of two non-governmental organisations who were supposedly were behind the original funding of the peaceful Gen Z protests, and subsequently the introduction of violent criminal gangs. Some of the supposed findings in the investigations file are rather mystifying as they seem to be part of a propaganda and misinformation drive rather than any concrete solid evidence.
By the time the alleged evidence was being deliberately leaked to gullible reporters last Tuesday, and also as Kindiki spoke two days later, it was apparent that there was no evidence that could stand up in a court of law linking any of the supposed suspects to the said plot. None of them had been even questioned, leave alone arrested, with the only evidence on record being the same rumours and hearsay that the wave of arrests and abductions had been trying to verify, only to draw blanks.
Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, who has been outspoken in favour of the Gen Z protests alongside Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, concedes having heard that he is on the police radar, but “they have nothing on us”, he told The Weekly Review, “I’m waiting for them to arrest me but I don’t care. It just shows how clueless they are. Instead of addressing the problem they are looking to pin on people like me”.
Social media conversations
Other politicians on the radar from Nairobi, Mt Kenya region and Rift Valley do indeed hail from both Kenya Kwanza and Azimio, with the former complement tilted towards Gachagua allies, while the latter are closely linked to Raila. Investigators are paying close attention to some of the civil society groups openly supportive of the protests, and also scouring social media conversations of individuals and groups where there is anti-government chatter.
One group that has been infiltrated by state security agents for a long time is the Kenya Bora Tuitakauyo, a discussion forum bringing together wide array of civil society activists, professionals, politicians, journalists, academics, intellectuals and other for robust WhatsApp discourse from varied standpoints on what ails Kenya.
A key member of the group is veteran civil rights campaigner Cyprian Nyamwayu, who cut his activism teeth during the head days of the multi-party campaign and the agitation for a new constitution. He watched the TV Interview: “I was sincerely appalled by Kindiki,” he told The Weekly Review, “especially because I have a long history with him at going back to our days together at the Centre for Law and Research International (One of the early organised outlets for constitutional reform in the mid-1990s) under Professor Kivutha Kibwana”.
He expressed alarm that the Kindiki he knew “has morphed into something I can’t even describe”, saying that he pities a former comrade who has sunk into open framing of innocent people for political purposes. “I looked at him and I pitied him”, he said, predicting that the Interior minister had no clue what he was getting into and would eventually come to a sticky end.
It would indeed be a dramatic moment if even low-level operatives are hauled in court charged with treason on the invasion of Parliament, and then linked to senior politicians. Meanwhile, Ruto would be still struggling to address the issues raised by the Gen Z protests which clearly were not just about high taxation, but general discontent around a government that promised so much, especially for the youth and the Hustler Nation, but delivered so little.
There has been wide expectation of a radical cabinet reshuffle if Ruto has to throw many of his people under the bus to save his own skin, but that would undoubtedly be seen against the prism of the growing civil in Kenya Kwanza between president and deputy. Ruto is also under intense scrutiny following his promise to engage the Gen Z protests, but so far there are movement plans to form a multi-sectoral plans amidst fears it will be populated by pliable pro-government groups with the protest movement relegated to the sidelines.
Same applies to Ruto’s promise to engage the youth on their favoured X Space forums. It was a bit of a damper when it emerged that the conversation last Thursday from inception seemed rigged to lock out the voices of protest and admit only approved government cheerleaders.
