Kenya is watching a familiar script play out again. President William Ruto is back on the campaign trail, speaking of fresh plans, new funds, bold corrections, and renewed energy. Crowds gather. Promises return. The language shifts slightly, the tone recalibrated, yet the core message feels recycled. Many Kenyans are asking a blunt question: what happened to the pledges made in 2022?
The 2022 campaign centered on the “bottom-up” promise. Mama mboga were to receive structured credit. Boda boda riders were to access affordable loans and formal recognition. Hustlers were to rise. The economy would open up. Young graduates would find work. Farmers would see better returns. Health coverage would expand. Education would stabilize.
Three years later, daily life feels heavier for many households.
The cost of food remains high relative to income. Informal traders report shrinking margins. Small shop owners borrow to restock and then borrow again to repay short-term digital loans. Boda boda riders speak about fuel prices, spare parts, and harassment from enforcement officers. The promised relief has not translated into visible change in many estates, markets, or villages.
The Hustler Fund was introduced with fanfare. Millions registered. Loans were disbursed quickly. Yet the loan sizes were small, repayment cycles short, and many borrowers found themselves locked in repeat borrowing. Credit alone does not build production. Credit without stable demand traps people in survival loops. A market woman in Gikomba told me she borrowed, repaid, borrowed again, and ended with the same stock, same customers, same daily sales. Only the stress changed.
Healthcare was presented as a pillar of reform. The National Health Insurance Fund was restructured into a new social health insurance model. Confusion followed. Contributions increased for many salaried workers. Service providers complained about delayed reimbursements. Patients reported being asked to top up unexpectedly. A health system already under strain now carries administrative turbulence. County hospitals struggle with staffing and equipment. Doctors and nurses threaten strikes over pay and working conditions. Rural clinics lack basic supplies. Universal care remains distant.
Education shows similar strain. University funding models were revised, dividing students into funding bands. Families report uncertainty about fee balances. Some students defer studies due to inability to cover shortfalls. Public primary and secondary schools still face teacher shortages in many counties. Infrastructure gaps remain visible: overcrowded classrooms, incomplete laboratories, limited digital tools. Education reform requires long-term planning and steady financing. Policy shifts without clear rollout deepen confusion.
The economy has not delivered broad relief. The Kenyan shilling faced steep depreciation in 2023 before partial recovery. Public debt servicing consumes a large share of government revenue. New taxes were introduced through the Finance Act, increasing levies on fuel, digital transactions, and other goods. Households feel the pinch. Young graduates send out dozens of applications with no response. Informal employment absorbs most new entrants into the labor market, often with low pay and no security.
Corruption allegations persist. Procurement scandals surface. Audit reports cite irregular expenditures. High-level investigations rarely end with visible consequences. Kenyans have heard anti-corruption speeches from every administration since independence. The pattern remains unchanged: announcements, committees, task forces, silence.
Supporters argue that inherited debt constrained this administration. Critics respond that campaign promises were made with full awareness of fiscal realities. Citizens measure leaders by outcomes, not explanations.
The frustration extends beyond President Ruto. The opposition brands itself as an alternative, yet many of its figures have held power before. Kalonzo Musyoka has served in Parliament since the late 1980s and held senior cabinet positions. Eugene Wamalwa has been a minister. Martha Karua has served in cabinet and Parliament. Fred Matiang’i held powerful security and education roles. Rigathi Gachagua served as deputy president. These are not outsiders.
Travel to Mwingi in Kitui County, long associated with Kalonzo Musyoka. Water scarcity persists in many wards. Youth unemployment remains high. Health facilities struggle with equipment and specialist availability. Roads improve in some sections, deteriorate in others. Housing conditions reveal deep poverty in rural stretches. The same observation can be made in parts of Western Kenya, parts of Central, parts of Coast, parts of Nyanza. Leaders rise from these regions, serve nationally, return with little structural change visible on the ground.
Kenya has cycled through presidents: Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, and now William Ruto. Each era promised reform. Each era delivered selective growth and selective decay. Major industries once symbols of national ambition declined: Kenya Cooperative Creameries struggled before partial revival attempts; Rivatex faltered; Pan Paper collapsed; Kicomi Textile Mills declined; Kisumu Molasses and related industrial facilities shut down; Kenya Farmers Association weakened. Privatization, mismanagement, global competition, and policy inconsistency played roles. Political patronage shadowed many of these stories.
The pattern feels entrenched. Elections become high-stakes competitions for state access. Coalition negotiations revolve around cabinet slots and parastatal appointments. Tender allocation becomes political currency. Citizens observe elites reconciling quickly after heated campaigns. The rhetoric is harsh; the handshake comes soon after. The public remains outside the room where resource distribution is discussed.
Young Kenyans form the majority of the population. Millions enter the labor market annually. The formal sector absorbs only a fraction. Technical training remains underfunded relative to need. Agriculture employs many but yields low income per acre for smallholders. Manufacturing’s share of GDP has stagnated for years. Innovation hubs exist, yet scale remains limited. Without sustained industrial policy, youth employment pressure will intensify.
The colonial administrative structure remains largely intact: centralized executive power, patronage networks, land concentration patterns, and extractive revenue collection. Devolution offered hope. Counties gained budgets and authority. Some governors improved service delivery. Others replicated national-level patronage at county scale. Corruption cases shifted location rather than disappearing.
Calls for a new crop of leaders grow louder. Kenyans speak of generational change. Civil society once vibrant now faces regulatory pressure and funding constraints. Independent media remains active yet faces economic strain and political pushback. Citizen protests flare periodically, often triggered by tax hikes or police actions. Momentum rises, then dissipates.
The comparison to Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso circulates widely on social media. His anti-Western rhetoric and assertive posture attract admiration among some African youth frustrated with entrenched elites. Kenya’s political structure differs markedly from Burkina Faso’s military-led transition. Kenya remains a multiparty democracy with constitutional checks. Still, the yearning behind the comparison signals fatigue with incremental reform.
Kenyan politics has normalized recycling. Leaders who served in past governments rebrand as reformers. Alliances shift. Ideological lines blur. Party manifestos change language more often than substance. The voter faces a ballot filled with familiar names.
Personal experience sharpens this frustration. I once visited a public hospital in Eastern Kenya to see a relative. The pharmacy window was closed due to stockouts. A nurse quietly advised purchasing basic supplies from a nearby chemist. The chemist prices were higher than Nairobi rates. The relative survived; the system did not improve. Elections came and went.
In 2022, optimism existed. Crowds believed bottom-up economics would redirect state focus. The informal sector felt seen. The language resonated. Three years later, many of those same traders count coins carefully before closing shop.
Opposition rallies promise accountability. Yet questions linger. Where were these voices when they held office? What bills did they champion? What procurement systems did they reform? Constituency development funds flowed through their hands. County allocations passed under their watch. The record remains mixed at best.
Kenya’s GDP has grown over decades, yet inequality remains stark. Urban skylines rise; informal settlements expand beside them. Rural youth migrate to cities and return disappointed. Remittances from diaspora cushion many families. Public sector wages consume large budget shares. Debt servicing competes with development spending.
Corruption narratives stretch back decades. Goldenberg. Anglo Leasing. NYS scandals. COVID-19 procurement controversies. Fertilizer subsidy disputes. Each era produces its scandal list. Few senior figures face lasting consequences. Institutional memory records the cases; public trust erodes.
Political fatigue does not equal political apathy. Turnout remains high during elections. Kenyans debate intensely online and offline. Community groups organize. Churches speak. Professional associations issue statements. The civic muscle exists. Leadership renewal requires more than anger. It requires credible candidates, transparent financing, internal party democracy, and voter discipline.
Dismantling a system built over sixty years is not a slogan. It involves constitutional amendments, electoral reforms, judicial independence, procurement transparency, and local economic planning. It requires citizens to resist short-term handouts in exchange for long-term policy commitments. That transition is difficult.
Yet stagnation carries its own cost. Youth unemployment fuels crime and migration. Brain drain accelerates. Healthcare professionals leave for the UK, US, and Gulf states. Teachers seek private sector alternatives. Engineers relocate. A country cannot thrive while exporting its skilled labor due to domestic frustration.
The cry for something new is not abstract. It emerges from daily calculations: school fees due, hospital bills pending, farm inputs rising in price. It surfaces when electricity tariffs increase and small manufacturers close workshops. It appears when graduates with degrees work in unrelated casual jobs.
President Ruto still has time in office. Policy correction remains possible. Fiscal discipline, anti-corruption prosecutions, targeted industrial revival, transparent healthcare reform, and stable education funding could shift perception. Words alone will not suffice.
The opposition must also confront its record. Voters are no longer easily persuaded by recycled manifestos. Regional loyalty weakens when basic services fail for decades. Mwingi’s water shortages are not abstract data points; they are daily realities.
Kenya stands at a crossroads defined less by ideology than by credibility. Citizens seek leaders who can deliver measurable change. They seek transparency in debt management, fairness in taxation, and real investment in productive sectors. They want functioning hospitals, employable skills, and reliable water systems.
The political class debates coalition arithmetic. Ordinary Kenyans debate survival arithmetic.
Sixty years after independence, the scoreboard is uneven. There has been progress in infrastructure, telecommunications, and financial innovation. Yet poverty persists across counties. Youth unemployment remains high. Industrial capacity lags potential. Public trust in leadership is fragile.
A generational shift may come through the ballot, through civic organizing, or through internal party reforms. It will not arrive through rhetoric alone. Kenyans have heard speeches for decades.
The demand now is simple: deliver.
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