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The recent uproar over a governor’s call to end abductions shines a glaring light on the deeper dysfunction in Kenya’s leadership. Regardless of personal opinions about the messenger, the appeal for basic human rights and justice is a truth that cannot be ignored.

Yet, overzealous leaders have turned their energies toward attacking the first-time governor. This bizarre political behaviour lays bare a grim reality: our leaders are increasingly preoccupied with theatrics, praise singing and name-calling rather than substantive governance. That now we should not talk against the abductions and death of young Kenyans because of past injustices. What logic informs such utterances by people masquerading as leaders while acting as monuments of shame?

What’s more baffling is the vehement denial of abductions by some leaders, despite President William Ruto himself admitting that they should stop. The logic here is as perplexing as it is unsettling: how can one commit to ending something that purportedly does not exist? Such contradictions only deepen public mistrust and raise legitimate questions about the integrity of the leadership we rely on to deliver the public good.

The tragedy with our beloved country is not what should be done, because we all know what ought to be done, but the people entrusted with doing. The people surrounding the President have this penchant for making outrageous statements that speak of a shocking group of elites, enjoying the opulence of a taxpayer-funded lifestyle while flying with their heads in the cloud, completely oblivious of the pain of the common mwananchi.

I have voiced my two cents before in opposition to the degenerate criticism and it is important to reiterate a categorical imperative. Martin Luther King Jr, in his famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, noted that “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”. Leaders of serious national clout, including the President and the former Prime Minister, have acknowledged the crisis of abductions, and it defeats logic why their lieutenants frustrate conversations around confronting the issue.

You see, while we must be quick to remind activists, most of them young, exuberant Kenyans, that nonviolent protests should seek not to defeat or humiliate leaders perceived not to serve public interests, we must also call out the establishment for the excesses beyond the provisions of the law. Our collective responsibility is to create a society where justice and equality prevail.

But before we condemn the mode of critique by Kenyans, we must address the elephant in the room – some leaders who have become monuments of both shame and shock. Kenyan politics has devolved into a performance – a circus where leaders seem more focused on optics than outcomes. Political gatherings, whether in church, market places or even funerals have become stages for political grandstanding. Instead of fidelity to the context of the gatherings, these events are used as platforms to announce personal deals, attack opponents, and score favours with higher powers. This trivialisation of the public sphere underscores the increasing disconnection between leaders and the real struggles of ordinary citizens. For instance, going to funerals and torpedoing themselves in justifying an injustice to please the President is a new low.

Announcing personal transactions at a funeral – a setting that should embody dignity and reflection – reduces some of these characters to chiefdom griots and transactional leaders with a penchant for the trivial. Such acts are emblematic of a broader culture of impunity and moral decay that has taken root in our political system and refused to address the lofty promises previously made, unleashing a disenchanted and tech-savvy lot that is unlikely to relent in their attacks on the regime.

As leaders entrusted with helping the President fulfil this regime’s promises drown in a sea of sycophancy, let us remind them that a bad situation might be getting worse.

— The writer is a media studies Researcher