We first demanded that the government drop the Finance Bill. But when the bill was dropped, young people were still angry about how the government had treated them. President Ruto called us terrorists and treated protesting as treason. So people went back to the streets with a new demand: Ruto must go. He was corrupt, governing on behalf of the IMF, and was having human rights activists arrested and abducted. Extrajudicial killings were taking place.

In Garissa, we educated people about the contents of the bill in the Somali language. We partnered with TikTok influencers, and that’s how we got a crowd to join the local protests. In contrast, the people from my community who took part in the bigger protest in Nairobi were mostly university students and professionals.

While President Ruto dropped the bill, he didn’t listen to our other demands. The housing levy stayed. Corruption continued. Cabinet secretaries with histories of corruption were not removed. So young people went back to the streets, and that second time the repression was worse.

For the Garissa protest, we had a WhatsApp group. We made a poster; everyone shared it on their WhatsApp status and with their contacts, and we mobilised through civil society networks. In Nairobi, organising happened mostly on Instagram and Twitter/X. Through these platforms, people shared information about where to meet, where police stood and where to get water. Social media played a major role in getting the word out and keeping people safe.

The person who publicised the Nairobi protests most was Boniface Mwangi, a human rights defender with a very large Twitter/X following, a kind of watchdog who many people trust for information about corruption. The opposition party was to some extent also involved, and the government claimed the then-deputy president, later impeached, was also recruiting young people, though this was never proved.

The government also used social media and technology for repression. At one point, the police were using ride-hailing apps, so that when someone requested an Uber, the driver would ask if they were going to the protest, then drive them directly to the police station. But people warned about this on Twitter/X, so we all started carpooling and moving in groups. There was also a time the government put up fake posters on social media pretending to be protest organisers, providing a wrong meeting location. We had to tell people not to go there. All of that was happening on Instagram and Twitter/X.

Our call was to ‘occupy’. On the day the Finance Bill was being voted on, it was #OccupyParliament. Young people entered parliament and filmed themselves inside. And that’s when the abductions started. The government allegedly partnered with Safaricom, the telecommunications network, to track down people who had tweeted about being at the protest.

I was arrested at the airport, and after that I started using a VPN. I had posted about the protest in Garissa with the hashtag #RutoMustGo, and I didn’t realise the government could use that to find me. I had even shared information about VPNs at an event at the Commission on the Status of Women in New York, but I didn’t understand the full meaning of this until it happened to me. Then I made my Instagram account private, downloaded a VPN and told friends and everybody on social media how to protect their location and IP address. Some of the free VPNs are weak and can be compromised, but they’re still much better than nothing.

The most widespread threat was surveillance, which could lead to abduction, arrest and enforced disappearance. The police would track the movements of protesters who had posted or tweeted from a protest site and then arrest or abduct them. There were cases of protesters being abducted from the university. What’s scariest is what could happen to you after being abducted. People who were taken in sometimes went missing, their bodies found in a river a week later.

Security forces also used rubber bullets and live bullets against protesters. One of my friends was hit in his feet with a rubber bullet. One day in Nairobi, we were running towards parliament and if someone hadn’t opened a building for us to run into the parking lot, we would all have been shot. When we came out after things calmed down, there were bullet holes in the wall.

In the beginning, there was more organisation. There was systematic information on how to stay safe or what to do if someone got abducted or arrested. We told people to go in groups, not to throw stones, to inform others of their rights and so on. But over time, we lost that connection. Repression, generational differences, government co-optation attempts and lack of a unified leadership and plan weakened the movement.

Young people in Kenya don’t trust the government or political parties. There was one political party some used to trust, an opposition party that criticised the Finance Bill, but its leader, Raila Odinga, died a few months ago. I think the lack of a leader who could serve as a point of reference is a big part of why the Gen Z movement in Kenya has withered.

At some point, a movement needs direction. The movements that inspired me, in Bangladesh and Nepal, had collective organisation, and we didn’t. If we’d succeeded in bringing down the government, who would have taken over? Possibly the military. We didn’t have a plan for the day after. We just knew we wanted the Finance Bill stopped and the president gone.

Within the protest movement, there was a disconnect between generations. Many millennials dropped out following the withdrawal of the Finance Bill, afraid that we were headed towards anarchy. Gen Zs were braver and kept going. So they experienced the worst of the repression, and in response, many gave up on politics.

The one tangible achievement was the Finance Bill being dropped. Nothing else changed in the government or political dynamics.

Something, however, did change in us. A lot of young Kenyans are now well informed about politics. There’s a slogan going around on social media, ‘one term’, meaning Ruto will be a one-term president, because when the next election comes, young people will vote him out. There is now a mass mobilisation of young people registering to vote, although the government is making it difficult by not publicising the voter registration process.

I don’t see another protest wave happening in the near future because of the fear imposed through violence. Instead, I can see a potential trend of young Kenyans becoming more actively involved in politics, not only voting but also running for office. Mwangi, for instance, is now running for president. Many more are coming forward to run for parliament. The energy seems to have moved from the streets to the ballot box.