Dear Generation Zs,

Hope this finds you well. Please hear me out.

Homeland or death, we shall overcome. We will continue our struggle, keep singing the truth until we shame the thieves. To some extent, examining the truth behind the struggle for power by African leaders is beyond a common minds comprehension, but through their aggressive actions, they have proved to us who they truly are.

For my own sanity, my little misplaced political maturity doesn’t allow me to praise politicians’  campaign pledges that are shouted at rallies, neither do I take sides when political enmity arise. Our voices should be heard even if it means singing from our graves.

While politics involves decision-making and power relations between individuals, politicians have, however, turned it into a science of deception and fraud. Every election year, we hear a tiring repetition of the same story: creation of jobs for the youth, women empowerment and improved living conditions for all.

These are campaign pledges that never live to see the light, but then we get gagged through intimidation and cruelty of death and abductions just because we want what is good for us. Our generations will never forgive us for this. Allow me to ask you this question, do you really believe that politicians mean any good for us?

Now, before you scold your Kikuyu neighbour for telling Raila Odinga to do things right just because you are a Luo, or insult that neutral neighbour for telling the government to stop madness, ask yourself what you stand to gain.

 Honestly, it’s been three years past the 2022 general elections and still, a president whom we got to power through prayers and fasting is still sailing us in hopes of “what his government will do” instead of what the government has done.

And as if we lack options, we still crowd his roadside shows and reciprocate his madness with chants and ululations, wearing reflector jackets branded “kumi bila break.” Who really bewitched us as a country? Are political handouts sustainable enough to propel us towards realising our ambitions as a country?

Social health insurance is not working, people are becoming jobless day by day, a sinking education system, poor road infrastructure,  abductions, sixty years of independence yet we still have schools where learners sit under trees, some with buildings that sheltered our great grandparents and many others that you can help me mention yet we still choose to turn a blind eye. Aren’t these plagues enough to open our eyes, stand our ground and shout it to “Pharaoh must go?”

Must we wait for Pharaoh and his sadist battalion to come for our oxygen before we stand for ourselves? I take it that any youth who still gets time to attend a politician’s rallies and fails to boo him is either a visitor in Kenya or is not living in Kenya.

Why is it that Rigathi Gachagua started calling out on the government only after his impeachment? Why is Justin Muturi only criticising the government after his son’s abduction and his removal from the Cabinet secretary position?