There is something deeply unsettling happening in our country lately. It is not new. It is something I have witnessed happen in the past, and it almost destroyed us as a nation. It is dark. It is hugely retrogressive and primitive. Violence.
As the campaigns towards 2027 begin to heat up, we are increasingly seeing the mushrooming of political gangs for hire, now termed ‘goonism’. Across Kenya, in towns, counties, churches and political gatherings, violence is becoming a common political phenomenon. This is dangerous!
As Kenya continues to feel the impact of geopolitical developments and emergent phenomena such as the upsurge in AI and technological advancement, our priority should be to think strategically and act to buffer citizens against these global disruptions; instead, our focus is on the 2027 elections. But this focus is not progressive at all, because the use of violence as a strategy to get ahead and dim opponents is what is carrying the day.
Kenya Must Choose Peace: Warning Signs from Our Past
In 2006, similar signs of coming election violence were ignored. The African Union, through the African Peer Review Mechanism, flagged deep structural challenges that needed to be addressed, including weak management of diversity, inequalities, and youth unemployment.
After the 2007 elections, Kenya burned. We lost over 1000 lives, while hundreds of thousands were displaced. Property worth millions of shillings was destroyed. Neighbours turned against neighbours. Our nation nearly broke.
I was there. As a journalist and as part of the youth voices around the mediation process led by Kofi Annan. I remember the fear. The uncertainty. The stories that never made the headlines, the ordinary people who lost everything.
So, when I see what is happening today, I do not see isolated incidents.
I see warning signs.
What pains me the most is how ‘leaders’ are using and misusing young people. They are at the centre of most of the violence we are witnessing across the country.
They are being hired, mobilized, and weaponized for political ends. Promised quick money. Pulled into fights that are not theirs.
But when the dust settles, they are the ones left either dead or with injuries, arrests, trauma, and sometimes, no future at all. The political elite will move on as swiftly as they showed up. They always do. They have options. They can leave. But for most young Kenyans, Kenya is the only home they know. We must jealously guard Kenya, or we will perish together as fools.
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One thing is clear; violence can not co-exist with democracy. Democracy is not about who can shout louder or hit harder. It is about restraint. It’s about the rule of law. It’s about allowing different views to be expressed without fear, intimidation or favour of any kind.
The moment violence becomes a tool of politics, democracy shies away. It begins to die. And without peace, there is no development. Disenfranchisement, hopelessness and helplessness become the order of the day. The clamor for Kenya to be like Singapore has been around for decades, but the hard truth is that no country develops, industrializes, or builds prosperity on chaos. Even the United Nations Development Programme reminds us that real progress is about people, their dreams, their dignity, their security, and their development. Simply put, human development.
We have seen what war and violence can do. I visited Liberia not too long ago. You can still feel the scars of war, in the stories, in the silences. It takes years, even generations, to rebuild what violence destroys. In Rwanda, remembrance is a national duty, because forgetting is dangerous. In Somalia, instability is still a daily reality. Families have been displaced. Lives have been disrupted, and they will never be the same again!
These are not distant lessons. They are mirrors, showing us what could be if we are not careful.
Never Again Must Mean Now
To the young people of Kenya, please, do not be used. No amount of money is worth your life or your freedom. Your future is too valuable to be traded for someone else’s political agenda. And to our leaders, stop funding violence. Stop turning youth into weapons. Stop playing games with our country.
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The following institutions: the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and the National Cohesion and Integration Commission Service (NCIC) must work collaboratively and take decisive action against the culprits, regardless of political leaning, to send a warning to the rest. Without this, the blame game will continue, and no individual, political party or institution will take responsibility.
Never Again must mean Now. ‘Never again’ is not something we say only when we remember the past. It is a mantra and a philosophy we must live now. Because violence does not start big. It starts small. It is excused and normalized. It is turned tribal. Until one day, it is too late. We have a choice. A choice between looking away and acting. Let us not burn it again.
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