Brute force for a scared government

Police officers used everything they could find — razor wire, spike strips, boulders and crime scene tape — to block access to Nairobi’s Central Business District, effectively paralysing movement across the capital.

Motorists headed to the city centre were turned back at roadblocks, along with pedestrians. Distance travellers from all corners of Kenya were held outside the city and subjected to unwarranted searches. Many others, such as some young Kenyans who had attended a festival at the coast, were blocked from leaving on Sunday.

This was the State’s response to the planned Saba Saba demonstrations, exposing President William Ruto’s deepening fear of dissent — a fear that appears to grow with each new wave of protests. The government’s response reached new lows with the arbitrary violation of Section 39 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement.

Still unsettled by the June 25 demonstrations when a section of protestors came within a few hundred metres of Ruto’s official residence at State House, police erected checkpoints at estate access points across the city in the wee hours of the morning.

Youthful protesters had announced demonstrations on social media to demand accountability for police brutality and eventual justice for victims, who number more than 80 since last year. They deliberately chose Saba Saba for its significance. Saba Saba, which translates to seven-seven, commemorates the July 7, 1990, protests for multiparty democracy in Kenya.

“The government is barricading itself,” said businessman-turned-politician Jimi Wanjigi, who helped mobilise the Saba Saba commemorations on X. “These are stories we heard during the Emergency period when the colonial government was still in place. Ruto has lost legitimacy and has one option: negotiate his resignation from power.” 

In many ways, the scenes from the Saba Saba day, which saw the historic Kamukunji Grounds in Nairobi cordoned off, were played out across the city. The signs that this would happen were clear from Sunday, when Kenya Railways, which operates the Standard Gauge Railway, suspended the evening train over “technical issues.”

On social media, some young Kenyans travelling from the coast had complained that they were blocked from making the journey to Nairobi ahead of yesterday’s protests.

Monday morning, many Nairobians awoke to find police stationed outside their estates. Some waited at bus stops for public transport that never arrived. Vehicles that did show up were redirected to ‘alternative’ routes, only to encounter more barricades.

Silent frontline

Police appeared to have been instructed to deny all access to central Nairobi, the epicentre of Gen Z-led protests since last year. As a result, a city that would normally hum with activity on a Monday morning was eerily silent.

Kenyatta Avenue, often a flashpoint for clashes between police and demonstrators, lay deserted.

Here in the frontline of the clashes between the police and Gen-Z, usually bursting with the deafening explosions of tear gas canisters, silence reigned. There was nothing peaceful about this quietness, largely inspired by fear.

Businesspeople closed shops. Some hired guards to keep watch. Others, crossing their fingers, hoped the metal reinforcements to their storefront gates, welded in place days earlier, would hold.

“Nairobi is more dead than it is on a Sunday, although there was not as much destruction as last time,” said Dr Timothy Njagi, an economist. “There will be losses on Monday, but people will be able to recover from them when life bounces back to normal tomorrow (today). As long as the demos are a one-off and not prolonged, people will bounce back.” 

Gen-Z did not seem as eager in the Saba Saba protests as they were about the June 25 demos, evident in the light human traffic into town. Deputy Inspector General of Police Gilbert Masengeli, who patrolled the city centre, appeared to interpret this as a victory for keeping the city out of bounds.

“Everyone is getting into the CBD and going to work as usual,” Masengeli claimed, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Only emergency services — ambulances and accredited journalists — were permitted through, and only after lengthy negotiations.

Consequently, nothing was leaving the city either. Those working night shifts bore the brunt of the disruption. Along Thika Superhighway, they trudged home in small groups of three to five — large enough to deter muggers, small enough to avoid police scrutiny.