BY CHRISTOPHER OMONDI
Youth-led protests have been the center of calls for accountability, reduction of standards of living, police reforms and other governance related issues related to service delivery. In the early 2024, leading to the June 25th protests, my community of Kondele in Kisumu County was the center of protests with demonstrators raising various issues, most of which are yet to be solved.
In late 2024 the opposition leader Raila Odinga who has a strong political base in my community entered a memorandum of understanding to work with the government and this meant a big shift in the political dynamics in my community. It meant all the grievances could not be raised as we were perceived to be in government.
Fast forward to today political mobilizations by people working for political leaders have affected the nature of protests in my community as compared to before. Leaders who were mobilizing youth for the demos are now mobilizing against it with a lot of money being offered to make sure no demonstrations take place in this area.
This has created more tension as there is wrangles over the handing of money plus those that get the money want justifications from the source and thus attacking the few that are willing to hold leaders accountable and protest. It is even evident from the recent Saba Saba protests planned to start in Kondele by activists and human rights institutions was disrupted by goons claiming to be after peace. It is not known the specific leaders involved in the hiring of goons as most mobilizations are done by proxies.
This has greatly affected service delivery as leaders cannot be held accountable due to political affiliations, the youth are desperate to make ends meet to the point that they strive to impress leaders for handouts as they don’t have other means due to unemployment. It is more like we are making money from not protesting making it look like there’s nothing to gain from these demos. Now that’s manipulation.
As the election period nears it is becoming clearer that our leaders are always going to use the youth for their political ambitions and selfish gains and now its upon the youth to educate the others on their rights to demand accountability while also working out ways to advocate for good governance.
