By IP Reporter.
NAIROBI, Kenya — For decades, Kenya’s political class has weaponized tribal identity as a convenient tool for distraction and division.
It resurfaces every election cycle, not to uplift communities, but to divert attention from systemic failures — from youth unemployment to crumbling health systems and rampant corruption.
Let’s be honest: tribalism in Kenya is not organic. It is engineered. Politicians cultivate ethnic divisions to consolidate power and evade accountability.
It keeps citizens focused on imaginary enemies across borders rather than demanding answers from the leaders who mismanage their taxes and betray public trust.
But something is shifting.
The Gen Z-led protests sweeping across the country have made one thing abundantly clear — this movement is not tribal. It is about justice, equity, and the collective demand for a better Kenya.
These young voices do not care what language you speak or what region you come from. They care about accountability, truth, and a shared future.
Their actions have exposed a political class that invokes tribal loyalty only when convenient — when their grip on power weakens.
Yet, when public resources are looted, when police brutality strikes, when dissent is criminalized, no tribe is spared.
The narrative must change.
Kenyans must stop offering blind loyalty to self-declared tribal kingpins who trade ethnic solidarity for personal gain.
We must reject the old playbook that turns identity into a cage. Our allegiance must be to justice, integrity, and progress — not to last names or hometowns.
The unity rising from the streets is perhaps the most powerful repudiation of ethnic politics since independence.
It is a wake-up call that the real fight is not between Kikuyu and Luo, or Kalenjin and Luhya. It is between the governed and those who govern with impunity.
Kenya’s revolution — if it is to succeed — must be rooted in national identity, not tribal anxiety. And the youth have already shown the way.
Peter Mwibanda is a legal and political blogger focusing on governance, youth activism, and civic justice in Kenya.
Ends.
