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Why Gen Z should snub the national conclave

Why Gen Z should snub the national conclave
Demonstrators caught in clouds of tear gas during Gen Z-led protests in downtown Nairobi on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. PHOTO/@channelafrica1/X

Kenya’s youth, particularly Gen Z, since its awakening, the political class has been panicking.

Raila Odinga’s recent call for a national youth conclave may sound like a gesture of goodwill, an olive branch to young people who have taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers. But peel back the layers of this initiative, and it becomes clear: it is little more than a political public relations stunt. Gen Z should not be flattered; they should be furious.

The so-called conclave is not a platform for engagement. It’s a stage for condescension. It is not designed to listen to the youth, but to lecture them. The political elite, led by Odinga, are scrambling to control the narrative after weeks of digital dissent and spontaneous protests that they neither anticipated nor understood. Let us call it what it is: an attempt to pacify a generation that refuses to be co-opted.

The Gen Z uprising in Kenya, sparked by resistance to the punitive Finance Bill 2024, has rattled the establishment to its core. It has been leaderless, fearless, and remarkably clear in its demands: transparency, accountability, and an end to the state-sponsored economic suffocation of ordinary citizens. No slogans, no tribal tokens, no party affiliations, just raw, unfiltered, legitimate rage from a generation that is tired of being lied to and ignored.

This is not the kind of movement Kenyan politicians are used to. For decades, political figures like Raila Odinga have traded on struggle credentials and liberation nostalgia to secure loyalty. But Gen Z doesn’t care who went to jail in the ’80s or who gave fiery speeches in the ’90s. If you are enabling or excusing corruption, wastage, or state brutality today, you’re the problem. Full stop.

Odinga, once the face of resistance, is now indistinguishable from the establishment he once fought. His calls for “dialogue” are glaringly tone-deaf when set against his silence during police crackdowns on peaceful protestors. There were no press conferences then, no urgent conclaves, only silence as young people were brutalised for daring to raise their voices. And now, after the blood, after the tear gas, after the hashtags turned into funerals, we are told to come sit and talk?

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga addressing the press in Nairobi on July 7, 2025. PHOTO/Emmanuel Wanson
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga addressing the press in Nairobi on July 7, 2025. PHOTO/Emmanuel Wanson

The long con?

This conclave is not about understanding. It is about containment. A carefully choreographed attempt to sap the energy out of a movement that has proven too unpredictable and too independent for the political class to manipulate. It is designed not to empower Gen Z, but to neuter them. To feed them talking points and platitudes instead of policy changes and justice. And no, we are not falling for it.

If this were a genuine attempt at engagement, it would have started with an apology and an acknowledgement of the failures that led to this moment. The organisers would be demanding the repeal of the Finance Bill. They would be calling out police excesses and pushing for justice for those killed in the protests. Instead, they are pushing photo-ops and empty speeches. This is not a seat at the table. It’s a muzzle.

And let’s be honest, Kenyan politics has always had a knack for co-opting dissent. We’ve seen this before: youth councils packed with cronies, token appointments, meaningless handshakes. They dangle opportunities for dialogue just long enough to kill momentum, then get back to business as usual. It’s a playbook older than most Gen Zers.

But this generation is different. They grew up with receipts. They have seen promises made and broken in high definition. They remember who tweeted what and who said nothing when it mattered. They’re not here for carefully edited speeches or staged empathy. They want action. They want accountability. And they will not be bought with hotel banquets and microphones.

The most insulting part of this whole exercise is the assumption that young people are lost and in need of “guidance” from those who have presided over Kenya’s decline. No, we don’t need to be mentored into silence. The youth are not confused. They are angry, and rightly so. They are not uninformed. They are disillusioned. And they are not looking for heroes,they are tearing down a broken system that has betrayed them over and over again.

We don’t need another crop of politically groomed youth leaders moulded in the likeness of their corrupt elders. We need a generation of independent thinkers, activists, and visionaries who refuse to play by the old rules. The conclave seeks to manufacture obedience. Gen Z is demanding liberation.

Suppose Odinga wants to understand this generation. In that case, he should go to where the real dialogue is happening: on the streets, in WhatsApp groups, on TikTok, and in town hall meetings organised by ordinary young people, not behind velvet ropes at five-star hotels surrounded by cameras and handlers. Until then, this conclave is not a bridge; it’s a trap. And Gen Z would be wise to walk away.

There’s no need to be in the room just because it has air conditioning and a media team. Real power is not begged for; it is built. Gen Z is already building it, outside the reach of traditional politics, in ways that no conclave can contain. Let the old guard talk amongst themselves. We’ve heard enough.

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