The weight of history hangs heavy over Kenya’s perpetual governance crises. Like an architectural blueprint repeatedly altered by successive owners until the structure becomes unstable, our constitutional journey since independence reveals a pattern of deliberate institutional weakening—one that the 2010 Constitution was specifically designed to reverse.

Now, amid the Gen Z-led protests shaking the country’s conscience, Kenya once again finds itself at a crossroads. 

These youth-led protests—fuelled by frustration over the Finance Act 2024, punitive taxation, corruption, unemployment, ballooning public debt, and elite arrogance—represent not just economic grievances but a civic rupture.

In a generation that grew up under the 2010 Constitution, they have seen too little of its promise fulfilled.  

Many of them were born in the early 2000s, coming of age in a legal order that promised transparency, accountability, and participatory governance.

Yet, what they have inherited is an economy weighed down by debt, political patronage, and widening inequality.

The irony is profound: our salvation lies not in new political settlements or elite-led dialogues, but in fully implementing the very constitution their parents overwhelmingly voted for. 

This generation is not naive but historically conscious. Its slogans—Hatupangwingwi, yote possible, Ruto Must Go, and Reject Finance Bill—are marinated in the language of resistance and civic engagement.

Unlike their predecessors, they do not rely solely on civil society organisations, political parties, or international donors to speak on their behalf.  

They have taken up the tools of the digital age, amplified their voices through decentralised platforms, and reclaimed the Constitution as an instrument of accountability. 

Kenya’s history of reform suggests a pattern of political improvisation rather than enduring institutional commitment.

With every national challenge since the return to multipartyism, the political class has turned to ad hoc legislation, temporary settlements, or opaque elite pacts.  

The 1997 Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group (IPPG) reforms were hailed as a breakthrough, particularly for increasing space for opposition politics, but were never institutionalised in a lasting framework.

They depended on goodwill, not binding rules.  

The 2008 National Accord ended post-election violence but birthed a bloated coalition executive that prioritised political survival over systemic reform.  

The 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, followed by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), was sold as a nation-saving pact but became a thinly veiled project for constitutional mutilation—seeking to expand the executive and entrench elite power.  

Fast forward to 2025, we are witnessing a familiar script: Ruto-Raila “broad-based government” and renewed calls for national dialogue. 

It is important to recall that the 2010 constitution is not a foreign imposition. It is the product of decades of struggle—from the clamour for multipartyism in the 1990s, the torture chambers of Nyayo House, the 2003 Ndung’u Land Report, to the tears and broken bones of the 2007–2008 post-election crisis.  

It was debated in town halls, religious forums, and parliamentary chambers. It was a people’s covenant. Yet, the political elite—across parties and successive regimes—have often treated it as an inconvenience rather than a binding social contract. 

To be fair, the 2010 Constitution has worked. When Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza harassed a guard in 2011, the constitutional mechanisms kicked in.

A tribunal was formed, a due process followed, and she was found unfit and exited office.  

When human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their driver Joseph Muiruri were abducted and murdered by police officers, it was the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA)—a creature of the 2010 Constitution—that led investigations, culminating in convictions that were unthinkable under previous regimes.

In 2017, the Supreme Court courageously annulled a presidential election—a first in Africa.   

Lastly in 2021, that same court halted the BBI process for violating constitutional procedure and breaching the sovereignty of the people.

These are not isolated wins but empirical demonstrations that our institutional architecture can deliver justice and accountability—if insulated from political interference.

What remains wanting is not legislative content but institutional will.  

The Gen Z protests, therefore, should not be dismissed as emotional outbursts or anarchic revolts.

They are constitutional expressions of Article 37, which guarantees every Kenyan the right to assemble, demonstrate, and present petitions to public authorities.  

It is telling that this generation chose to act within the constitutional framework—organising peaceful marches, singing the national anthem, carrying placards, and submitting memoranda.

And while the violence, destruction, and looting that accompanied some protests must be condemned, we must not let those regrettable moments erase the genuine democratic spirit behind this civic action. 

The calls for national dialogue might appear noble, but they are also painfully familiar. In Kenya, “dialogue” has too often meant elite bargaining, not genuine public participation.

It is the language of political détente, not constitutional accountability.  

A nation cannot keep rebooting itself through gentlemen’s agreements while ignoring the supreme law.

If anything, our national conversation should focus on implementing what the Constitution already demands: integrity in leadership (Chapter Six), equitable resource sharing (Article 203), a devolved system of government (Chapter Eleven), an accountable and disciplined police service (Article 244), and robust citizen participation (Article 10). 

The responsibility also lies with institutions that must now rise above capture and inertia. Parliament must abandon its role as a rubber stamp and become a site of serious legislative scrutiny.

The Judiciary must resist political intimidation and continue protecting constitutionalism. Independent commissions—from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to the Commission on Administrative Justice—must act without fear or favour.  

The 2010 constitution, though not perfect, remains ours. History has shown, Kenya does not lack blueprints but fidelity. From Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 to Vision 2030, the problem has never been the absence of ideas, but the absence of implementation.  

The Gen Z uprising, for all its raw energy, may have achieved what years of civil society petitions could not: shaking the national conscience awake.

It has been demonstrated that civic awareness does not belong to NGOs or universities alone, but can sprout in TikTok videos, hashtags, memes, street chants, and handwritten posters. 

The answer to Kenya’s governance problem is not in a boardroom dialogue but in the constitution—and the courage to follow it.

Fifteen years since the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, the challenge is not to amend it but to actualise it.

To make it real in the lives of ordinary citizens. To ensure that it speaks not just in court rulings and parliamentary debates but in classrooms, clinics, police stations, markets, and every level of society.  

Kenya’s redemption lies not in the next pact, coalition, or handshake. It lies in constitutional obedience. The question is no longer whether the 2010 Constitution is viable.

The question is whether we, as a nation, have the courage to be governed by it. 

Dr. Chebii K is a Lecturer, Historian, Political Commentator and UASU Chapter Trustee at Alupe University, Kenya