Kenya Lesson Important for African Leaders—Amb. Mukwita
17th July 2024
African leaders must learn from the Gen Z uprising in Kenya that has claimed about 50 lives that a citizenry can revolt when poverty and graft in officialdom increases says international relations analyst Amb. Anthony Mukwita.
Amb. Mukwita also warned that the uprising is ´not´ isolated nor ´unique´ to Kenya, it could happen anywhere in Africa including Zambia once citizens feel disenchanted by the lack or poor performance of their leadership.
“This is a time for sober and strategic minds in the Zambian leadership and governance to do a post mortem of how the livelihoods of Zambians are being addressed by the current government since they assumed office almost three years ago,” Ambassador Mukwita.
He said the UPND government should seriously address a myriad of concerns from citizens regarding the prolonged loss of electricity that has inconvenienced households and crippled business as he country goes dark.
“Zambians running barbershops, poultry business and others have shut down forcing many to sleep hungry thereby escalating already chronic poverty which is bad and needs urgent address,” said Ambassador Mukwita.
The demonstrations in Kenya were triggered by President William Ruto´s decision to table a law that would raise taxes and make life harder and expensive for the majority ordinary citizens.
Led by the Gen Z, a population of people aged between eleven and 22 and joined by the general citizenry, Kenya went up in flames resulting into about 50 people dying.
President Ruto sacked his entire cabinet of 24 in a show of penance to the Gen Z but the youth are back on the streets, now calling for Ruto to resign too because they believe he is part of the problem as demonstrations escalate.
In Zambia recently, youths demonstrated against the lack of provision of power by the beleaguered ZESCO utility company, diminishing democratic space and high cost of living like the events that occurred in Kenya, they were arrested and released.
“My humble advice as an ordinary citizen is that government should arrest the high cost of living and prolonged power outages the youth are complaining about and not the victims just to avoid the volatile Kenya situation, the lessons from Kenya are for the rest of Africa,” said Ambassador Mukwita.
Zambia is experiencing the worst power blackouts lasting beyond 48 hours in some cases while the cost of living continues to rise according to the Jesuit Centre of Theological Reflection.
“President Ruto has been in office for only two years,” said Ambassador Mukwita, “no African President wants to find themselves in such a hot stop hence the reason to act to serve the people and not ignore or arrest them in a democratic society that allows free expression and association.”
He said it is deeply regrettable that about 50 people mostly young had to die for the leadership of Kenya to start acting.
Source: Amb. Anthony Mukwita
Anthony todolo musuma. Stop inciting. The current regime took astruirty measures so that taxes are not increased and the burdern of the debt that was accured by the PF regime is not passed on to the poor. Part of those measures was similar to what we have seen in Nigerian (fuel subsidy removal. Imagine an oil producing country, which mismanaged its debt also removing subsidy because they dont the infrastructure to produce and refine the oil. So they import petroleum products consumed in the country). The fuel subsidy was enjoyed by the few priviledged individuals and those driving govt vehicles.
Vvvvvrrm 1liter…remember? The money saved went to free education and purchase of medicines. You Anthony need to sit down and ask why the few in the city should enjoy tge bulk of the budget that could have gone to the many that are even able to enjoy meal allowances. Didnt your PF that made you Ambassador take meal allowance from the vey students you seek to incite?
You PF left a mess….and the mind set npt just structurals aspect of the economy is being realigned this is to ensure the porousness of government revenue and accountability takes place. We could go on all day. But save to say….stop inciting. Zambians dont need people who live in Ivory towers to remind them how tough things are….Perception is everything. Sometimes what we percieve is but a mirage.
Meant….austerity not astruirty