Mourners at the burial of Boniface Kariuki, a Nairobi mask hawker shot by police during protests, at Iyego village in Murang'a County on July 11, 2025.
Just over a year ago, the national anxiety was economic. The Finance Bill, 2024 ignited countrywide outrage over rising VAT, fuel prices and the audacity of new levies heaped upon a population already pressed to the wall. The question on every citizen’s lips was “how will I survive this economy?” The question today is different.
It is no longer about making ends meet; it is about making it home alive. A nationwide survey by Odipo Dev – a research and advisory firm based in Nairobi – reveals a dramatic shift in what Kenyans are most concerned about.
While the economy remains a significant source of anxiety for 42 per cent of respondents, state repression and violence have become a more immediate concern, with many citizens reporting fear of injustice (52 per cent), abductions (44 per cent) and police (38 per cent).
These are not theoretical threats. Between June and July, at least 47 Kenyans have died in anti-government demonstrations, hundreds have been injured and billions of shillings in economic output lost. April and May were riddled by reports of abductions and arbitrary arrests of filmmakers, techies and online activists.
The Odipo Dev research was conducted through a survey of 1,038 Kenyans in 20 counties that experienced protests on June 25, 2025. It was conducted via street intercept interviews.
Of the respondents, fifty per cent were aged 18 to 35, forty five per cent were between the ages of 36 and 50 and the remaining were above 50. The gender split was equal.
State brutality
The research also analysed keyword and hashtag data on X for Kenya in 2024 and 2025.
These latest occurrences follow a trend of state brutality that has rapidly become the status quo in the country. Since June 2024, Kenya has endured what is arguably its most visible and methodical campaign of state violence since the Daniel arap Moi era.
The Finance Bill marches in June 2024 were met with force. Within weeks, more than 60 people had been killed and hundreds injured, arrested or disappeared. More state violence followed in the months after June. “A Missing Voices” study documented 104 incidents of extra-judicial killings and disappearances in 2024 – a 450 per cent increase over the previous year.
Razor-sharp barbed wire placed on the entrance of Parliament Road on June 25, 2025 during the anti-government protest on June 25, 2025.
Economic hardship has long been the dominant lens through which governance was judged in Kenya. It is measurable, daily and universal.
But civic priorities are reset when peaceful citizens are shot in the streets, abducted for a tweet or silenced by surveillance. Fear becomes more immediate than inflation; safety more precious than a tax-break.
“Public priorities are never fixed. They are shaped by proximity, visibility and the immediacy of threat. In stable democracies, civic focus tends to centre on long-term concerns such as education, healthcare and employment,” says Mr Darius Okolla, a political researcher and author.
“In fragile or repressive contexts, the hierarchy of public anxiety can shift rapidly in response to perceived danger. Political theory shows that what citizens worry about most is not always what affects them most but rather what feels most urgent in the moment.”
This shift in the priority of citizen concerns is further evidenced by what has dominated national conversation lately, especially online.
The report shows that hashtags agitating for freeing abducted Kenyans and justice for those killed by state forces garnered significantly higher volumes of conversation on social media than any economic topics.
This was especially evident on June 25, 2025 when – during the anniversary of the Finance Bill protests – the Finance Bill, 2025 was barely a feature of the demonstrators’ demands.
Instead, young Kenyans rallied their outrage towards justice for the death of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody.
“The Finance Bill, 2024 may have sparked the protests, but what followed is a broader more visceral rejection of a broken system. With youth unemployment surging and 31 killed on July 7 alone, the violent crackdown signals a legitimacy crisis. This is no longer just about bad policy; it’s a generational revolt against exclusion, corruption and impunity,” says Mr Reuben Wambui, an economist and sustainable finance adviser.
Subaruphobia
What has taken root in Kenya’s civic life in the last year is a complex, defiant, vigilant, paranoid tension. Everyday life is now dominated by the drama of brutal politics.
The report, which also analysed public data on Kenyan conversations on X, found that words such as “abductions” and “privacy” have gone from relative obscurity to becoming part of daily vocabulary.
Protesters carry their injured colleague during Saba Saba protests in Nairobi on July 7, 2025.
The Japanese car brand Subaru has become synonymous with the threat of state brutality. Usage of the word “abductions” rose by 326,000 per cent, “Subaru” by 2,300 per cent and “Privacy” by 735 per cent in 2024, emphasising Kenyans’ increasing concerns around repression, rogue policing and surveillance.
“These days in Kenya, a Subaru doesn’t just mean speed, it means fear. Since last year, abductions have become so common that pushing hashtags has become part of our morning routine. We are living in a country where being disappeared is one tweet away. Parents instantly tense up when their child does not answer a phone call. And somehow, that’s become normal,” says activist Hanifa Farsafi.
In the same survey by Odipo Dev, some 76 per cent of respondents said they don’t feel safe to post political opinions online. Sixty four per cent are more afraid to take part in protests than they were in June last year. This is a finding that experts say is directly related to the rampant deployment of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act as a basis for repressing citizens who express themselves online.
An analysis in the report showed that at least 22 people have been arrested and taken to court over “breaches of the Act” since last year.
These concerns are reordering our elective politics. The 2027 elections are no longer a referendum on economic management alone. They are shaping up to be a contest over the misuse of state power, and opposition leaders have pivoted to the new national narrative.
Former Chief Justice David Maraga, who was teargassed during the June 25 protests, has criticised the weaponisation of police and called for a constitutional reset. Long-time activist and Senator, Okiya Omtatah, has aligned himself with kin of the disappeared and protesters and filed petitions demanding prosecutions instead of abductions. Ironically, Fred Matiang’i, once the enforcer of state excesses, has called for restraint, warning against the use of force against protesters.
On the other hand, the regime has doubled down under the guise of protecting peace and stability. President William Ruto has referred to dissent as “terrorism disguised as protest”. He recently reaffirmed his administration’s unwavering support for the police, even lately instructing to “shoot them in the leg”.
Can the narrative shift back to economic messaging ahead of 2027? Mr Wambui finds it unlikely.
“The walk-back on taxes hasn’t restored calm, because the issue isn’t just economic but political too. Young people just don’t want jobs or training; they know justice and a government that listens is a precursor to that. When trust collapses, economic pledges ring hollow – especially when paired with state violence and elite excess. Until there’s accountability for police brutality, corruption and tone-deaf leadership, economic fixes won’t land. The protests now demand something bigger: a reckoning with how the country is governed,” he says.
Meanwhile, the economic crisis hasn’t gone away. It has merely been muscled out of the national spotlight. Kenya’s debt situation is worrying and unsustainable, according to Mr Kwame Owino, CEO of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
State brutality
“The government needs immense relief from having to settle huge debts. The total obligation is still as high as it was last year. Nothing has eased, especially after a year. We’ve written a paper urging the government to consider applying for debt write-offs. It cannot carry this debt indefinitely. It cannot carry debt-servicing indefinitely, especially with the shilling – in our view – being much stronger than it should be,” Mr Owino says.
Interest payments on public debt now consume roughly a third of total tax revenue, while more than 40 per cent of young adults remain unemployed, and approximately a million more enter the market every year.
Investor confidence is shaky due to the political instability, and experts caution that domestic borrowing and high lending costs are crowding out private investment.
But as Mr Owino says, there is no separation between the two spheres and the solutions for both are inextricably linked. A wrong move on one end, triggers the other.
“The political and economic solutions required are not necessarily separate. My view is that the protests and huge public involvement around finance bills and budgets in general are telling us that Kenyans actually have the view that there’s what I call a political economy constraint on how much taxes the government can take,” he says.
“It is forcing us to have to talk about a government that is going to run public affairs more efficiently with less money. Therefore, contemplating raising taxes to 25 per cent, as this administration suggests, is going to be extremely challenging not only economically because firms are closing, but also politically because Kenyans will not accept it.”
And yet, even as these economic pressures intensify, they are no longer the loudest threats. A citizen facing police violence is not thinking about interest rates. A parent trying to find a missing child is not calculating household inflation.
