Ephraim Njenga's Take on Youth Uprising

[Relic Hunter]

@Denis Young maoni, back in 2020 you liked his analysis

The current political agitation in the country has its roots in the economy. The Kenyan economy is collapsing systematically after years of looting and mismanagement. If you think you have seen a lot, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Those who say that the youths have no issues and are driven by petty politics are living in denial. Every year, we are releasing a million youths into a job market that is only creating 80,000 new formal jobs. In 2024, the informal economy created 90% of all new jobs.

The saying that the bulging number of jobless and hopeless youths is a ticking time bomb is no longer a dull-sounding cliché. The bomb is ticking, and time is not on our side.

Instead of politicians solving these economic challenges, they think hiring bloggers and goons is the answer. With the government spending close to 50% of tax revenues on public debt interest expense, it will soon struggle even to pay salaries.

The salaries of workers have been experiencing negative real growth due to the rising cost of living. Even the little they are getting will be unavailable.

A collapsed economy anywhere serves as fuel for political instability. Ours won't be any different. Denying the harsh economic realities facing Kenyans is playing with fire.

The worst mistake this regime did is to own the economic crisis they inherited by claiming they had stabilised things. What or who will they blame when the economic collapse is beyond what can be denied by regime bloggers?

 

[Ngimanene Na Malege]

@Denis Young maoni, back in 2020 you liked his analysis

The current political agitation in the country has its roots in the economy. The Kenyan economy is collapsing systematically after years of looting and mismanagement. If you think you have seen a lot, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Those who say that the youths have no issues and are driven by petty politics are living in denial. Every year, we are releasing a million youths into a job market that is only creating 80,000 new formal jobs. In 2024, the informal economy created 90% of all new jobs.

The saying that the bulging number of jobless and hopeless youths is a ticking time bomb is no longer a dull-sounding cliché. The bomb is ticking, and time is not on our side.

Instead of politicians solving these economic challenges, they think hiring bloggers and goons is the answer. With the government spending close to 50% of tax revenues on public debt interest expense, it will soon struggle even to pay salaries.

The salaries of workers have been experiencing negative real growth due to the rising cost of living. Even the little they are getting will be unavailable.

A collapsed economy anywhere serves as fuel for political instability. Ours won't be any different. Denying the harsh economic realities facing Kenyans is playing with fire.

The worst mistake this regime did is to own the economic crisis they inherited by claiming they had stabilised things. What or who will they blame when the economic collapse is beyond what can be denied by regime bloggers?

@Denis Young @pop in were last seen hiding under the bed from wamunyoro and gen z

 

[upepo]

The fact is, the GenZ unemployment problem isn't going away even after Ruto's exit. The next government will have to deal with it, and that will need a total overhaul of systems and how the government runs its business just to maintain a functional society. The Kibera/Slum deprivation, which supplied Raila with demonstrators any day of the week, is gradually creeping into countless towns and villages across the country. The situation has not been helped by the steep rise in the cost of living, including electricity and gas, which have made life unbearable even for employed Kenyans.

Before the Ukraine conflict, a worker earning 1000 shillings per day could feed his family and still afford other daily needs. Not any more. The money is hardly enough for food. Whoever comes next, the first order of business is to lower the cost of living by all means. It makes no sense for Kenya power to buy a unit of electricity at 5 shillings from Ethiopia only to resell it at 30 shillings to consumers. Fuel taxes too have to be adjusted downward. The 300 billion the country collects from oil taxes annualy is a key contributor to the high cost of living.

Faced with the unemployment crisis, I would consider ending protections for the steel and cement industries, which would easily bring down steel and cement prices by 30% and unlock about 1 million jobs in the construction industry. Poor government decisions often stifle potential economic growth areas as was the case before the tax exemption of bodabodas. Exempting motorbikes from taxation created 1 million jobs just like that, thanks to Kibaki's foresight.

In short, we need a government that is bold enough to acknowledge the crisis and be willing to take unorthodox steps to maintain the economy in the bad territory rather than worse. In the mid to long-term, the land issue will also need redress. Some of the excess youth labor could be put to good use in redistributed land.

 

[pop in]

@Denis Young @pop in were last seen hiding under the bed from wamunyoro and gen z

This has nothing to do with the economy If a Kamau or Njoroge were in power, what you are seeing today would never have happened

 

[Relic Hunter]

This has nothing to do with the economy If a Kamau or Njoroge were in power, what you are seeing today would never have happened

This is low from you sir

 

[DeepInYourMind]

The problem is simply odious debt. Economic returns that should have been invested into the economy for growth and flourishing of future generations is instead being used to fill pockets of lovethieves and killers.

 

[pop in]

This is low from you sir

If the protestors from Thika Road and Kiambu Road never showed up june 25th would have been just another day in Nairobi

 

[pop in]

@Denis Young maoni, back in 2020 you liked his analysis

The current political agitation in the country has its roots in the economy. The Kenyan economy is collapsing systematically after years of looting and mismanagement. If you think you have seen a lot, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Those who say that the youths have no issues and are driven by petty politics are living in denial. Every year, we are releasing a million youths into a job market that is only creating 80,000 new formal jobs. In 2024, the informal economy created 90% of all new jobs.

The saying that the bulging number of jobless and hopeless youths is a ticking time bomb is no longer a dull-sounding cliché. The bomb is ticking, and time is not on our side.

Instead of politicians solving these economic challenges, they think hiring bloggers and goons is the answer. With the government spending close to 50% of tax revenues on public debt interest expense, it will soon struggle even to pay salaries.

The salaries of workers have been experiencing negative real growth due to the rising cost of living. Even the little they are getting will be unavailable.

A collapsed economy anywhere serves as fuel for political instability. Ours won't be any different. Denying the harsh economic realities facing Kenyans is playing with fire.

The worst mistake this regime did is to own the economic crisis they inherited by claiming they had stabilised things. What or who will they blame when the economic collapse is beyond what can be denied by regime bloggers?

Maandamano never happened in Mt kenya when Azimio la Umoja One Kenya protested the HIGH COST OF LIVING lets call this what it is tuache ku run round in circles

 

[Mwalimu-G]

If the protestors from Thika Road and Kiambu Road never showed up june 25th would have been just another day in Nairobi

The identities of the bodies of those shot at the city mortuary tell a contrary story.

 

[Denis Young]

The worst mistake this regime did is to own the economic crisis they inherited by claiming they had stabilised things. What or who will they blame when the economic collapse is beyond what can be denied by regime bloggers?

I agree with what he is saying except this section I quoted. Was Ruto supposed to say it wasn't his problem to fix? In general he is right but he makes the point with zero context.

Ever since I was in high school years ago, I have heard this song about lack of jobs. Now we are in 2025 and suddenly close to 2 decades worth of unemployment is suddenly Ruto's fault.

Yet, as at the time of the election in 2022, the economy was grappling with the following:

- massive debt payment obligations (70% of tax collections)
- a maturing Eurobond that we were about to default on with its inherent risks
- about 500bn worth of pending bills,
- a weak shilling that was being stabilized with $4bn a month of our FX reserves
- depleted dollar reserves because of the FX games that precipitated a fuel shortage
- 60bn worth of unpaid fuel subsidy
- 4bn unpaid on electricity subsidy
- an unga subsidy that failed spectacularly
- broke universities that were about to shut down
- a broken CBC education system that didn't have enough teachers or even classrooms
- 30bn of unpaid bills, largely fake bills, on NHIF
- unpaid CBA protests by lecturers, doctors, heath interns etc

This is just a bit of what our economy looked like in August of 2022. But somehow Ruto should have created an enabling environment from this entire mess. Even if you leave the rest and just focus on the debt issue, so long as we have that problem hanging over our heads, the unemployment crisis will be here with us.

It is the reason the government has had to raise revenue through taxes and squeezing money from wherever they can find it to avoid a default. It is the reason why circulation of money is a problem and sales are depressed. With the high interest rate regime, that has now been coming down, businesses started downsizing, others closing down which has killed the flow of money.

But all these things are now improving. Lower interest rates, stronger shilling, lower inflation, better fiscal room to undertake projects. We are at the top of the hill after struggling to climb and now it is time to enjoy the slide down. Yet when we have reached the peak of our suffering it is when people want to burn and destroy the painfully-earned progress. You would think this behavior is unique, but it is incredibly predictable.

 

[Jino]

If the protestors from Thika Road and Kiambu Road never showed up june 25th would have been just another day in Nairobi

YuDa cows you can bury your head's in the sand but demos were country. Tribal card won't work this time