How Kenya protests stir a new round of ‘youthquake’ across Africa

By Emmanuel Onyango

Frustration brewing in many African countries is finding a voice on social media where thousands of Gen Z and millennials are breaking new ground against long-standing grievances.

The continent has the world’s youngest population and that is projected will nearly double to 2.5 billion over the next 25 years.

However, Africa’s youthful energy feels unmatched by governments development efforts.

Using tech-savvy tactics similar to those used in the 2011 protests in Egypt and the 2020 #EndSars protests in Nigeria, many young Africans are again harnessing the digital space to mobilise for better governance.

“If governments can't do what is proper, what is proper will catch up with them,” observed Abdullahi Yalwa, an analyst based in Nigeria’s Bauchi city.

For the past seven weeks, cries of “Ruto Must Go”, “Reject Finance Bill” and “Stop police killings” have rang across cities and towns in Kenya, as youthful protesters vent their anger at growing dissatisfaction with President William Ruto’s government.

The agitation started on social media platforms and were triggered by a proposed finance bill that contained unpopular tax hikes on basic items like bread, cooking oil and sanitary pads.

But it soon snowballed into nationwide anti-government protests to reflect the general sense of despair.

The demos saw protesters storm parliament building, vandalise a part of the Supreme Court and bring businesses in the capital, Nairobi, to a standstill for days.

The authorities responded by deploying the military to help the police in dealing with the unrest.

At least 50 people were killed following the “security forces” response, according to the state-backed human rights watchdog.

In neighbouring Uganda, youths emboldened by the happenings in Kenya also mobilised on digital spaces for protests against perceived corruption in President Yoweri Museveni’s government.

But the authorities cautioned against “copy and paste” demonstrations, with Museveni warning people against “playing with fire”.

Ugandans nevertheless poured on the streets on Wednesday and Thursday in the capital, Kampala, where their attempt to march to parliament was met by police force.

Almost 100 of them were arrested for being "common nuisance, idle and disorderly", according to local media reports.

‘Same generation’

“The triggers are different. In Kenya it was about the finance bill and taxation, while in Uganda it's about perceived looting of public funds. But the similarity is the age group of the primary actors. In both cases it's the same generation,” according to Ugandan human rights lawyer Kiiza Eron.

“In Uganda, social media has been the primary mobilization tool and there were threats to cut the internet, but they were not followed through,” he told TRT Afrika.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest democracy, is also bracing for similar protests expected in the coming days.

The country is grappling with its worst economic crisis in decades. Youths have organised through X and TikTok to push the government to reverse petrol and electricity price hikes, offer free education, declare a state of emergency on inflation, and disclose lawmakers' pay, among other demands.

An outpour of support for the planned protests is already playing out, with various hashtags trending including #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria.

The authorities have sounded caution with the country’s police chief saying: “We will not sit back and fold our arms’’ to watch some elements ‘’unleash violence”.

“The protesting youths have been neglected and are frustrated,’’ Yalwa told TRT Afrika.

Online activism that finds its way to the streets has so far proved effective in gaining international attention.

The way the youth-led protests have been organised in the three countries appears to be borrowing tactics from each other, by not having a figurehead and remaining unaffiliated to any known political formation.

“Please don’t be fooled by these comments saying we should’ve had a leader, or we should have one. The best thing about this is how we are leaderless party-less and tribe-less. The status quo are rattled,” Hanifa Adan, one of the protest coordinators in Kenya, posted on X.

The coordinators have also largely bypassed traditional media and retained a complete control of their narrative on digital spaces.

"The issue of technology and the demographics are threads that connect many African countries. Those two ingredients can no longer be ignored in the governance of Africa going forward,” said Kiiza.

President’s U-turn

The taste of seeming success so far, at least in Kenya, is spurring the young protesters to demand for more.

Ruto was forced into making a dramatic U-turn and shelving the finance bill, dissolving his cabinet and accepting the resignation of the police chief.

The Kenyan president has since co-opted members of the opposition into a new “broad-based” cabinet, and unveiled spending cuts including scrapping the budgets of the offices of his wife and deputy president’s wife.

But many say the moves are a familiar tactic in the old play book of Kenya’s identity politics.

“The activism is potent otherwise Ruto wouldn’t have acted the way he did. So the potential for potency is undisputed and the example is in Kenya and to some extent Uganda,” Kiiza added.

"The demonstrations can't continue forever but the potential will remain in the population going forward because the demographics are not changing and the technology is only increasing. But we will see hacking and surveillance.”

On the other hand Kenyan and Ugandan governments blame foreign elements for fueling or igniting the agitation.

“That demonstration had two bad elements. Element number one, was funding from foreign sources that are always meddling in the internal affairs of Africa for the last 600 years,” President Museveni posted on X platform.

In many ways, the protests give a sense of heightened awareness among young people, a group traditionally seen as lacking interest in matters of governance.

However, Abdullahi Yalwa believes they face a challenge of transforming their activism into an actual political change for the better.

"The only unfortunate thing about it is that the protesters may not be so organised to have a decent replacement that would be better than what they have removed,” he observes.

Nevertheless, the analyst believes these protests should awaken leaders to recognise the importance of young people in governance and development by paying greater attention to their needs.

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