Parliament adjourns early as lawmakers stay away amid Gen‑Z protests
By Mercy Mwai, June 26, 2025Lawmakers were forced to prematurely adjourn House sittings due to a lack of quorum as most members kept away from Parliament following the countrywide Generation Z protests.
On June 25, 2025, sittings adjourned early, despite the lawmakers commencing late, after the intervention of session speakers who ordered quorum bells to be rung for some time to enable members to make their way into the chamber.
The adjournment saw most of the bills and motions that lined up for debate not being debated as the sponsors were nowhere to be seen.
During the sittings, the Members of Parliament (MPs) hurriedly passed a number of motions, including the third supplementary estimates for the financial year 2024/2025, which seeks to give the government additional funding of about Sh18 billion before the close of the financial year.
They also discussed the report of the Consolidated Fund services, expenditures for the third Supplementary Estimates for the financial year 2024/2025, and the formulation of a regulatory framework on Artificial Intelligence before they adjourned the sessions.
Normally, morning sittings are supposed to start at 9:30 am and end at 1 pm, but yesterday’s session ended at around 12:30 pm.
Adjourned sittings
And immediately, the House adjourned sittings, a number of lawmakers were spotted leaving Parliament in droves for fear of being attacked.
Ugenya MP David Ochieng, who was the session chair, was forced to adjourn the sittings to an afternoon session.
He said: “The time now being 15 minutes to midday, the house now adjourns the sittings to today, Wednesday.”
The move to adjourn the sittings saw about four bills and about two motions not being debated.
The affected motions include one on the implementation of the universal health coverage (UHC) and the creation of a policy on mandatory use of public health care facilities by public officers, the formulation of a land use policy on zoning of land for agriculture and built development and another one touching on the creation of a reward scheme for accomplishments by sports persons in international competitions.
Passed bills
Others are the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges (amendment) bill (Senate Bill No. 37 of 2023, the Breastfeeding Mothers bill (National Assembly bill no. 8 of 2024), the County governments (amendment) bill (Senate bill no. 25 of 2023) and the Salaries and Remuneration commission (amendment) bill (National Assembly bill no. 21 of 2024).
Apart from housing sittings, committee sittings from both the Senate and the National Assembly were also affected, and all were suspended.
The multi-billion-shilling Bunge Tower, which is normally busy hosting State officers, governors and other witnesses invited by committees, was an abandoned site as the said individuals were a no-show.
Instead, the building was a security area as security had been heightened around it to ensure that no protestors accessed the building.
The National assembly committees that were supposed to hold sitting s include the Public Investments Committee on education and Governance which was supposed The Committee PIC Education and Governance which was supposed to meet various universities, including Kisii University, Mukiria Technical Training Institute, Karatina University, Garissa Universit,y Nyandarua, National Polytechnic Murang’a University.
The other committee is the Committee on Environment, Forestry and Mining that was set to meet Forestry and Environment Principal Secretary over the alleged dumping of toxic and nuclear waste in North Eastern, the under valuation of Moi International Airport Forest cover and the construction of a hotel in Ngong Forest despite protests from the public.
At the Senate, the committees that postponed sittings include the Senate County Public Accounts Committee and the Senate County Public Investments and Special Funds Committee, which have been meeting governors in the last two weeks in relation to audit queries raised by the Auditor General, Nancy Gathungu.
The adjournment of the sittings comes just a day after lawmakers held a speaker Kamukunji (informal sittings) where Speaker Moses Wetangula assured members that their security was guaranteed.
Said one MP who attended the meeting: “The speaker assured us that all will be well. He said that he had engaged the security chiefs on the matter.”
The decision of the MPs to keep away from parliament precincts follows the invasion of parliament by the youths that left property worth about Ksh200 million destroyed.
The youths stormed parliament after what started as a TikTok movement morphed into a full-blown revolt that made #OccupyParliament a reality.
At least 60 people were killed during the demonstrations, and scores were injured.