The Great Disconnect: Why Kenya’s Youth No Longer Believe in the State

By Ephraim Agbo 

A high-profile public forum, held in the symbolic cradle of human origin at Nairobi’s Louis Leakey Auditorium, offered not a vision of progress but a stark diagnosis of a national rupture. The exchange between political stalwarts like Martha Karua, government representative Sylvanus Osoro, clergy, and activist Zahid ibn Mwale transcended polite debate. It became a staccato inventory of Kenya’s contradictions: a renewable energy leader whose political compact with its youth is violently fraying; a nation celebrated for innovation yet unable to halt a spiral of gendered violence.

The session crystallised a central, unsettling theme: the politics of distance. This is the growing chasm between state rhetoric and lived reality, between macroeconomic indicators and household despair, and between the security apparatus and the citizens it is meant to protect. The discussion mapped three interlocking crises—a jobless economy, a securitised state response, and systemic gendered violence—revealing them not as isolated failures, but as symptoms of a deeper institutional disconnect.

The Green Power Paradox: Abundant Energy, Scarce Futures

Kenya’s status as a renewable energy powerhouse is undisputed. With roughly 90% of its grid powered by geothermal, hydro, and wind, it stands as a global exemplar of green transition. This technical triumph, however, exists in a parallel universe to its socioeconomic reality. The economy fails to transmute that power into formal, large-scale employment for its educated youth, who face estimated unemployment rates as high as 67%.

This is the core paradox policymakers grappled with on stage. How does a nation capable of powering industries for export fail to generate meaningful work for its own? Martha Karua’s pointed interventions reframed the discourse: “skills gaps” and “brain drain” are not inevitable market outcomes but political and strategic failures. The abundance of power highlights, by contrast, the scarcity of vision in converting national infrastructure into human opportunity.

Labour Export: Strategic Policy or Generational Surrender?

The government’s position, articulated by Majority Chief Whip Sylvanus Osoro, frames labour migration as a pragmatic solution—a source of remittances and global exposure. Yet, activists on the panel unveiled a grimmer narrative: the systematic commodification of Kenyan youth as cheap labour for foreign markets, often under exploitative conditions.

This debate exposes a fundamental political choice. Is labour migration a transitional relief valve or a stopgap that entrenches dependency? The critics’ moral and strategic argument is potent: exporting talent may temporarily depress unemployment figures, but it systematically hollows out the very human capital required to build resilient local industries. It is a policy of distance—exporting a generation’s problems rather than solving them at home.

Securitised Response: From Protest to a Crisis of Legitimacy

The Gen-Z protests of 2024–25, ignited by fiscal policy and governance grievances, shattered any illusion of a stable social contract. Independent reporting documented a pattern of harsh policing, contested fatalities, and allegations of forced disappearances. Organisations like Missing Voices recorded a dramatic spike in 2024, detailing scores of extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

As Zahid ibn Mwale emphasised, the public perception is critical. The security response is increasingly seen not as clumsy but calibrated: detention without due process, alleged cross-border renditions, and a pervasive culture of impunity. This securitisation transforms protest and repression into a vicious cycle, each fueling the other and radically deepening the distance between the state and its citizens.

Femicide: The Structural Violence Beneath the Political Crisis

Perhaps the most harrowing revelation of recent unrest is how gendered violence has become both a trigger for protest and a metric of state failure. Campaigners described a femicide crisis met with state indifference or, as reported during late-2024 demonstrations, with tear gas. The panel was unanimous: femicide is a structural and political failure. Weak prosecutions, underfunded survivor services, and the absence of a coherent national strategy transform private tragedy into a public emergency. The state’s response—or lack thereof—makes it a definitive test of governance.

Leadership Narratives as a Proxy for Institutional Decay

The on-stage debate between “servant leadership” and “personal responsibility” frameworks was predictable. More telling was how this argument acts as a proxy for deeper institutional rot: lethargic courts, opaque public finances, and a political economy where public office is treated as an extractive opportunity. President Ruto’s “Bottom-Up Economic Transformation” is a rhetorical attempt to bridge this gap. However, Kenya’s constrained fiscal space and debt vulnerabilities are tangible barriers. Without parallel reforms in taxation and transparency, visionary rhetoric only amplifies the distance between promise and delivery.

The Interlocking Cycle and the Path to Repair

The forum made clear these crises are mutually reinforcing. Joblessness fuels dissent; dissent meets repression, eroding trust; weakened rule of law stifles the investment needed for job creation. Breaking this cycle requires concrete, simultaneous actions:

· Forensic Accountability: Rebuilding trust necessitates independent investigations and transparent prosecutions for security force abuses, moving beyond impunity.
· From Labour Export to Job Creation: A credible domestic job strategy must scale manufacturing and green-energy value chains, moving beyond training-for-export schemes.
· Resourcing Gender Justice: Treat femicide as a public priority with funded shelters, expedited courts, and a national prevention strategy.
· Fiscal Reclamation: Smart debt management and transparent public finance are prerequisites for freeing up resources to invest at scale.

Conclusion: Beyond the Slogans

The forum ultimately revealed that Kenya’s dilemma is institutional. A nation that can achieve 90% renewable energy but cannot protect its women, employ its youth, or hold its security forces accountable suffers from a profound governance mismatch. Leadership now must be measured by its capacity to close the distance—translating national strengths into public trust through actionable justice, strategic investment, and inclusive growth.

The opening audience question—“Why is the government focused on exporting labour?”—encapsulates the pivotal choice. Is Kenya building a durable, inclusive economy or merely exporting its most pressing problems? The answer will be written not in slogans, but in the coming decade’s policy choices on rule of law, industrial strategy, and how a nation chooses to share its burdens and its promise.