Kenyan Youth Assembly, an organization seeking to involve Kenyan youth in the country’s governance, has blasted President William Ruto’s administration for failing to appoint a young person to his cabinet. (See their YouTube press conference at the bottom of the page.)
The youths wearing red berets, led by 26-year-old 2022 presidential aspirant Pigbin Odimwengu, raised concerns about insecurity, low job opportunities, high cost of living, and heavy taxation, among other issues affecting the youth.
“Kenya Youth Assembly is a composition of young people who’ve come out as youth governors, senators, MPs, and Members of County Assembly, with a clear role to act as a parallel assembly to oversight, legislate, and represent the youth of this nation,” Odimwengu said.
The Assembly takes its oversight commitment seriously and have demonstrated they’re not afraid of speaking truth to power. Appearing in a press conference together, the youth, Odimwengu, Osteen Amimo, Chibeka Matara, Maobe Victor and Abdulrahman Chineese, clearly articulated their demands to the administration and offered suggestions on how to involve the youth.
Central to their argument is the need for the government to appoint the youth– Kenyans under the age of 35.
Responding a question whether their criticism for the administration was too early and unfair, Odimwengu said there was nothing unfair.
“He promised to tackle these issues under 100 days. He said the first thing he will do is to lower Unga which he hasn’t up to now,” Odimwengu said. “We aint blaming him, all we are asking is that he live to his words on what he said he will do within the days he said he will do. Unless he was unfair to himself with his words.”
Decrying the lack of youth representation in the Ruto administration’s recent appointments, Odimwengu said the government used the youth during the campaigns but has not reciprocated their support.
“The youth have been neglected in the key and strategic portfolios in government. The youth have been neglected, and yet they’re the majority in this country,” Osteen Amimo, one of the youth leaders, said.
Amimo also challenged the government to live up to the Constitution and appoint ten or at least 3 youths to Permanent secretary positions.
Chibeka Matara, the only female in the group of 5 youth leaders, addressed funding challenges in public universities.
“As it is now, education is still not affordable. It’s still not accessible to all youth for higher education. We’d like to make a recommendation for the government to actually increase the disbursement of the HELB loan to most people that need the funding,” Matara said.
“Without education, this country cannot be equal. Education peke yake ndio inafanya mtoto wa maskini na tajiri wakae kwa meza moja under what we call idea-based discussions,” Maobe Victor.
She noted the irony of the government that campaigned on providing equitable education would be contemplating cutting funding for higher education.
Earlier this month, the Kenyan media reported Education Cabinet secretary Ezekial Machogu said the government would stop funding public universities.
“In Kenya, education takes about 25.9 percent, and we have to find other ways of creating and generating revenues for universities, and they have to look at other revenues,” Machogu said. “I’m going to move around each and every university in Kenya because a number is faced with financial problems, and we are encouraging that they must generate their own income because the exchequer as it is now is not going to continue funding more.”
Maobe Victor, whose central discussion theme was the high cost of living, also took issue with Machogu’s statement to cut funding allocation for public universities.
Maobe said public university education is currently underfunded because it needs about ksh 84 billion to run effectively, and the government has only allocated Ksh 50 billion.
“Without education, this country cannot be equal. Education peke yake ndio inafanya mtoto wa maskini na tajiri wakae kwa meza moja under what we call idea-based discussions,” Moebe said.
He said making education unaffordable would increase the number of illiterate Kenyans and negatively impact the quality of the nation’s labor force.
“Hatutakubali masomo kwa hii nchi, ikuwe ya matajiri pekee,” Maobe said.
After a national uproar, the CS reversed himself and blamed the media.
“Last week, there was a fake media report purporting that the government will stop funding universities. I was misquoted,” Machogu said.
He clarified his statement and said the government had already allocated kshs 50 billion for university education and more than kshs 15 billion to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).
Speaking about the increased cost of living in Kenya, Maobe said most people struggle to put food on the table, and some are turning to crime to make ends meet.
He took issue with Ruto’s lofty promises.
“The cost of living must come down. The President should stop promising heaven and come to the reality,” Maobe said.
He said the most urgent need for Kenyans is food and not unrealistic promises such as saying Kenya would build smartphones that cost less than ksh 5000.
He said the stress levels in the country were so high that Kenyans were barely coping.
“If you don’t die by accident in this country, you’ll die by being mugged in the streets. If you’ll not die by being mugged in the streets, utaenda hospitali utakufa kwa kukosa matibabu. If you don’t die in the hospitals, you’ll find yourself dead out of stress and stroke. That would get you out of the strain and stress of this life,” Maobe said.
Maobe mocked the administration, saying it appears the youth have to do something crazy to be given a job by the administration.
“We’ve seen young people coming up with slang names and nicknames for the Deputy President, and that young person is given a job opportunity. The other time we saw a young person dancing to a sick patient, she was appointed. So we’re asking this government, must we do something crazy to be employed? Maobe rhetorically asked.
Speaking about challenges affecting the pastoralist community, Abdulrahman Chineese said drought in the area had caused several regional clashes.
Terming the region’s tension as resource-based and human-wildlife conflicts have increased clashes between the communities and government rangers.
He explained that competition for resources had increased the number of armed communities, making it difficult for the communities to find pasture and water for their animals.
He urged the President to keep his promise and send security forces to the region to quell the unrest.
Reacting to the news about cattle rustling in the northern region of Kenya, President Ruto promised to send the police or even the military to quash the menace. But his promise has yet to materialize.
Chineese challenged the President to make his community a priority.
“We’re in a situation whereby the country is deploying forces to the DRC conflict when our people are dying due to a raid on unarmed civilians,” Chineese said.
Kenya has deployed about 100 troops in Goma to help fight the M23 militia that is surging in DRC North Kivu province.
“Mr. President, we’ll not bear with you anymore if you’ll not act. Please, start by lowering the cost of living. If you do that, we’ll wait for your promises to come. But if you don’t do that… we’ll be in the streets, and these single voices will be a million voices attacking and demanding that you change our lives and improve our lives.” –Pigbin Odimwengu
Speaking extemporaneously and without notes, Odimwengu took an opportunity to rally the youth.
“They say that if young people come together, the future is luminous,” Odimwengu said. “We’re here together to make that future luminous.”
He said since education benefits the country, the government should be willing to pay for it; therefore, privatizing education was a discriminative act against poor Kenyans.
Odimmwengu strongly condemned and termed it “barbaric imagination” that Fafi’s MP Shalah Yakub proposed a constitutional change to remove term limits for the Presidency.
“We once to first of all call on the youth and residents and constituents of Fafi to come and initiate a recall clause to their lost MP who was found in parliament mistakenly. That member of parliament must go back home because he doesn’t know his role and responsibilities,” Odimwengu said.
He threatened to lead the youth and storm the Parliament under Section 1 of the Constitution, which states: (1) All sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be exercised only in accordance with this Constitution.
“If the parliament attempts to bring that bill in parliament, we’ll storm it. We’ll invoke Article 1 of our sovereignty of us and Article 3 of the same to defend the Constitution. We’ll storm the parliament, interrupt the services, and retain back our power.”
“When will we be leaders if you want to extend it to 75?” Odimwengu asked.
He urged landlords to allow their tenants some latitude in paying them rent, saying people are facing hardships and might be unable to afford their life. He advised the youth not to resort to a criminal lifestyle to survive.
As a parting shot, he sent a message to the President promising mass action from the youth.
“Mr. President, we’ll not bear with you anymore if you’ll not act. Please, start by lowering the cost of living. If you do that, we’ll wait for your promises to come,” Odimwengu said. “But if you don’t do that… we’ll be in the streets, and these single voices will be a million voices attacking and demanding that you change our lives and improve our lives.”
