Editor’s note: Trevor Williams just returned from a reporting trip to Africa, where he inadvertently got caught up in widespread Kenyan protests against the government’s Finance Bill June 25.
“Are you going to write about our revolution?”
The question seemed outlandish as posed to me during an Italian dinner on the night of my arrival in Nairobi. The city appeared calm en route to the hotel. The streets were vibrant, not violent. I’d walked to a meeting past a tower emblazoned with Oracle and stopped in a bustling mall where shoppers were spending and friends were cheerfully catching up.
But by Tuesday on the way back from Nyandarua, just northwest of town, it became quickly evident that I’d picked the wrong time to be traveling in a government-marked vehicle.
Days of simmering anger against the so-called Finance Bill had bubbled over, and the whole of the country was erupting in protest. Led by “Gen-Z,” a term I was surprised to see applied to the youth here, the movement was largely peaceful and grassroots. No centralized opposition seemed to be driving things, rather a generalized angst over the wildly unpopular proposal coming to a vote in parliament that day.
Speaking to a lot of people — the benefit of visiting a country where English is widely spoken — I started assembling bits and pieces of why the bill was so contentious. One provision added a tax on formerly exempt ancestral land. Another, later walked back, levied a tax on sanitary products used by women in a country one young woman told me was already experiencing “period poverty.” Also edited out were a 16 percent tax on bread and another on cooking oil.
On the business side, the Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce had balked at the new VAT provisions, arguing that they would sap productivity. The government listened and incorporated some of those changes. Foreign investment attraction is paramount in overcoming the conundrum at the heart of Kenya’s economy — needing to drive growth to attract more revenues, but needing a solid balance sheet to ensure investors it’s safe.
Generally, however, any concessions were perceived as too little, too late. Atlanta’s new darling, President William Ruto, had become persona non grata among a large segment of his people. One woman told me she didn’t want to hate anyone, “but I hate him.” Rather than painting her nails, she’d had to start reading legislation and poring over the constitution. The new budget created an office for the First Lady, fueling fears of nepotism and fruitless junkets. She cited Ruto’s supposed lavish living and prior investigations by the International Criminal Court as further reasons he needed to not only change the bill, but leave office completely: “You’ve gotta go, bro.”
A taxi driver — one among those founts of political wisdom — said the public calls Ruto “Mr. Liar” and that none of his promised infrastructure projects have come to fruition, leaving people wondering where the jobs are going to spontaneously materialize.
This lack of trust, a breaking of the compact between the governing and the governed, seemed to be driving the unprecedented backlash. While the proposed levies were ostensibly part of a plan to please the IMF by raising $2.7 billion and shoring up a national debt standing at 68 percent of GDP, ordinary people were persuaded the funds would be misused. Taxes, they believed, were meant to line parliamentary pockets.
In that light, Ruto’s trip to Atlanta in May was not viewed kindly. People knew exactly how much he’d spent on the state visit to the U.S. Hiring a private plane in a country with widespread unemployment was a particularly bad look.
The purpose of his trip — shoring up Kenya’s alliance with the U.S. and recruiting investment to drive the economy forward — seemed to have been lost in the shuffle.
Our driver had been calling ahead to check the road conditions, trying to dodge planned disruptions by protestors occupying the main highways.
As widespread as they were, it was futile. In one small town, protesters blocking the road waved us backward as if shooing a fly. They surrounded our car, banging on the hood and shouting “No finance bill!” while climbing the running boards to wave posters in our faces.
The driver shrugged it off, and we finally were allowed to pass after rolling down the windows to explain that we were not, in fact, the officials taxing them. I felt safe — the atmosphere was irreverently festive, and the outpouring of righteous anger was not directed at me. This was a Kenyan Tea Party of sorts. Conservatives in the U.S could get behind the sentiment, and the civic activism and youthful exuberance they exhibited could make any liberal fall in love.
But things could turn, and if it was this bad here, what about when we arrived in the capital?
The two-hour drive turned to almost four as the pattern repeated at every intersection: see clumps of people congregated at junctions, exit the highway, determine whether the burning tires were on their side of the road or ours, chat with truck drivers to see how we were all going to get around. The driver class, who were just trying to do their jobs, shook their heads as if to say, “Those crazy kids,” but they didn’t seem to disagree with their motivations.
At one point, we wove through tight village streets, hugging the shoulder past corrugated metal shacks, chattering along dirt roads and catching odd looks as we trailed the wake of a lumbering transport truck.
We finally arrived in Nairobi’s Westlands, thankfully not having had to pass through the Central Business District; we picked up some things and headed to the chamber, taking a roundabout way behind the president’s residence, waved through by a guard. The government SUV had finally paid off.
By the time we’d met to discuss budding relations between the chamber and Atlanta, and the coming push for a nonstop flight to supercharge budding business ties, things had further heated up. We tried an Uber, but even to get a few miles, the roadblocks proved impassable. It was time for plan B — motorbikes.
At least two youths had stayed out of the fray, and they were waiting at a petrol station, ready to capitalize on their rising stock as the roads clogged. Slinging bags over our shoulders, we jumped on. We made headway in the gray area on the shoulder and between cars, sometimes crossing into the right lane (Kenya drives on the left) until oncoming cars approached. I clutched my bag and kept my knees pinned to the bike as I gripped the reins of the driver’s backpack strap.
We approached the same checkpoint we’d breezed through earlier, now fortified with a SWAT vehicle mounted with turreted machine gun barrels. National police were repelling cars and motorbikes. When drivers continued to argue, the officer walked briskly to the truck. We were already turning around before he grabbed the tear gas launcher.
Perhaps that’s what it took to give me a feeling we were witnessing something profoundly historic. My phone tucked tightly in my jacket, I tried to take mental pictures of the scene — people streaming this way and that, many in groups chanting slogans and waving tree branches. Empty highways and intersections still blocked, jamming up the surface streets. Our bikes slalomed past boulders and bits of rubble, and I held my breath as we zoomed through pillars of smoldering tire smoke. Someone lit a pile of straw on fire for seemingly no reason.
Back at the hotel, no cars were being allowed into what had become a fortress of steel and glass. Would I make it to the airport, I asked the front desk? Wait it out, became the consensus.
Safe but exhausted, we ate a quick dinner in the next-door mall. As we paid, a chyron flashing on a TV in the bar explained why the mood had shifted: Police fire on protesters storming parliament. It was later determined that more than 20 people were killed, with others being rushed to the hospital.
Ruto addressed the nation that night at 9 p.m. — my flight had already been postponed amid the melee and a mysterious system outage that some linked to an Internet shutdown.
His assessment? Criminals and terrorists had infiltrated peaceful protests, causing them to turn violent at parliament. He vowed a heavy-handed response to further incitement.
But by the time I boarded the plane to Johannesburg the next day, though a new headline had emerged: Ruto withdraws finance bill.