Today It's Us, Tomorrow It's You: Maandamano Edition
Don't You Just Love the Smell of Teargas in the Morning?
“Maandamano" in Kiswahili refers to a demonstration, protest, or a procession, particularly a public one.
It’s 12th of June the year 2025 and almost a year ago today, Kenyans were on the street, protesting the finance bill. There was triumph, but also tragedy, as many patriots didn’t make it back home afterwards.
Some disappeared, others, died.
A year later, not much has changed. People are leaner, hungrier, angrier. The prospect of being shot by police inspires much less fear.
The people have spoken. Enough is enough.
William Ruto continues to be the struggliest president who ever lived, and his policies continue to…er not use any lubricant in their attempts to molest us all. But we move.
So this week, a young man named Albert - a teacher and rugby coach as well as writer - was found dead in the custody of police. He’d been on his farm, with his wife and their child, just getting ready to eat his lunch when a car drove into the compound, bundled him into it and took off.
What was his offence you ask? Well, he was accused of tweeting about a certain police officer, one Eliud Lagat, and claiming that he was behind the killing of youths. The police were apparently not happy about this. They wanted to suppress this news.
Thee irony of this is that in killing this young man, the Streisand effect has happened and now everyone knows this officer’s name.
So they picked Albert up and brought him to Nairobi and here’s where things get murky. According to the police, they put him in a cell where he hit his head and was injured. They rushed him to mbagathi hospital where he was declared dead.
According to the autopsy conducted on Albert, he had defensive injuries on his hands, his entire face was swollen, commensurate with being hit repeatedly and he was bloody as hell.
Hmm.
What is the truth?
Kenyans were not about to sit back and let some false narrative perpetuated by the cops stop Albert from getting the justice he deserves. The alarm was raised and the people answered.
It was time to go back to the streets.
Without any pushing, prompting or payment, Kenyans were back on the streets, calling for justice, calling for an end to impunity, calling for a better Kenya.
Wherever Africans are found, they are going to sing.
We’ve read the constitution they sang. We know what it says. You can’t be out here lying to us, flouting the law, and not expect any consequences.
As I scrolled through my twitter timeline, only the captions told me that I was seeing images from Kenya and not LA - where ICE is causing havoc. The oppressor is the same; from ICE to Kenya Police to Israel to Sudan, to the DRC - the servants of capitalism, white supremacy and imperialism are raining insanity on citizenry in the name of ‘keeping the peace’.
That’s why it’s so difficult to tell where a particular uprising is taking place. Because the empire is falling and all it’s little offshoots are in flux. Citizens are fighting back, and fighting together, despite the danger, despite the imbalance of power. If all we have is numbers, then that’s what we’ll use.
I pray I’m alive to see it when the empire falls. It’s just about the only thing keeping me going. If there’s a thirteenth reason to keep breathing, that’s it.
Heaven knows it's hard to find reasons to keep going. Aside from the next season of Interview with the Vampire, the downfall of all the evil in the world is a pretty powerful motivator.
A junior officer has been arrested today for the death of Albert Omondi Ojwang. A scapegoat meant to soothe the troubled beast of the nation. Except nobody is satisfied by this empty gesture. The struggle, as they say, continues…
