Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka on Wednesday during the Labour Day celebrations at Uhuru Park called on Kenyans to follow the Sudanese people example and begin mass demos not to oust President Uhuru Kenyatta, but 'oust' corruption that continues to ravage Uhuru's Jubilee-led-government like a malignant tumor.
Kalonzo's statement came hardly a day after anti-riot police lobbed tear gas to disperse a group of anti-corruption demonstrators who had attempted to force their way into the Nairobi Central Business District from Uhuru Park on Tuesday.
One female demonstrator even ended up being arrested and detained at Central Police Station, a clear indication of how demonstrations in Kenya can achieve little if not nothing.
This state of affairs, therefore, begs why do mass demos tend to achieve so much elsewhere but prove futile in today's Kenya?
Here are some few observations.
1. Disorganized civil society
While the civil society groups of say 1990s was well organized and had a clear roadmap of what they wanted to achieve, today's civil society groups are poorly organized and are made up people only after achieving self-interests, fame, attention and all manner of useless things that are of no help to the people they purport to fight for.
These groups lack both long-term and short-term goals the reason their poorly organized demos die on arrival.
2. Too busy citizenry
Apparently, even if Kenyan public coffers were to be robbed to the last coin, few Kenyans can leave their day-to-day activities to go for demonstrations that have been convened to push the regime of the day towards a particular direction.
Consequently, the demos have been left to idlers, the unemployed and other people with nothing else to do whom as you guess right turn out to be opportunistic thugs who go to mug, steal, pickpocket the 'busy' citizenry drawing the ire of law enforcers.
3. Too much talk without walk
Many Kenyans especially those on social media are very loud behind the keyboard but when called to spill into the streets and force the government into action, they cow out.
They will instead watch from a far while ensuring they are the first to post and share eye-catching photos on social media of how the demos are unfolding on the streets. Of course all this balderdash will be for likes, shares, retweets and attention!