The establishment can no longer suppress the voice of the Kenyan people thanks to the 2010 constitution that has bequeathed the citizens with a voice to call out government officials whenever they feel that they are not getting the leadership they deserve.
Twitter especially has become a nightmare for government officials with a number of social justice activists using the platform to express their opinions and most of the time it is usually blunt and uncensored.
Activist Boniface Mwangi has been at the forefront of the revolution. His gutsy approach has landed him in trouble countless times but he seems unfazed by failing attempts to cut him down to size.
During the last Anti-Corruption Conference at the Bomas of Kenya, Chief Justice David Maraga complained of the ‘uncouth’ methods used to criticise the Judiciary over the institution’s role in the fight against corruption.
That morning before the conference, twitter was awash with photoshopped images of judicial officers including those of the chief justice massaging individuals perceived to be corrupt which irked Maraga but not President Uhuru Kenyatta who has already gotten used to the drill.
Uhuru laughed off Maraga complaints advising him to deal with it since the Judiciary had in 2018 shot down certain clauses of the Cyber Crime Bill which sought to gag bloggers.
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“I found it very interesting that you are very angry today especially with one group in our society called bloggers and I remembered that there was a time we wanted to pass a law to stop these people from insulting all of us left, right and centre but then you know it was taken to court and the court decided it was unconstitutional. So like the rest of us, get used to it,” Uhuru chided Maraga.
Recently, Marsabit residents served their leaders with muddy bottled water in protest of a decision by county officials to prioritise formation of a municipality board instead of giving them access to clean water.
One day earlier, women in Tharaka Nithi dumped undergarments outside Governor Muthomi Njuki’s office in protest of the county chief’s comments which they considered to be derogatory.
The governor had separately alleged that Tharaka Nithi women are dirty and that his political nemesis, Senator Kithure Kindiki speaks like a woman because of his soft voice.
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During former President Daniel Moi’s tenure, nobody would have dared to stage such protests.
But Kenya seems to have slowly but steadily crawled out of the dark era.
