YVONNE'S TAKE: If it's a coup, just arrest the plotters!

It doesn’t matter who is protesting. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying. And it certainly doesn’t matter how peacefully they do it.

The response, like clockwork, is the same: foreign agents, treason, an attempt to overthrow the government.

In 2024, the Ford Foundation was publicly blamed, until the accusation was quietly withdrawn. The president called protestors “treasonous criminals.”

This year, the Deputy President and other members of the executive claimed that there’s an active attempt to topple the government.

Now let’s just pause and take that in.

Because “treason” is not a slogan, it is a serious criminal offence. It is one of the gravest charges in any country. Attempting to overthrow the government is not an opinion.

It’s a very serious charge. And a coup? That’s not a PR problem. That is a national security emergency.

So here’s the question: if that’s really what’s happening, why hasn’t anyone been arrested?

This government has access to intelligence briefings, surveillance capabilities, the DCI, the NIS, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

If there’s truly a coup being plotted — with foreign money and local collaborators, then you have the tools. You have the power. And you have the duty to act.

As the world’s most famous sports brand says and no, this is not an endorsement,  Just Do It.

Arrest the conspirators.

Charge them.

Take them to court.

Protect the state.

Because if someone is truly attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government, you don’t call a press conference. You don’t post a hashtag. You don’t insinuate or imply.

You act.

But if you don’t, then you’re doing something else.

You’re playing politics.

You’re spinning narratives.

You’re using national security as an excuse, a narrative and pretext to something more ominous; to clamp down on any voices of discontent.

And that is dangerous.

When a protest is painted as a plot against the government, and every chant is called foreign-funded treason, then the burden of proof immediately falls on those alleging to table the evidence.

When such a serious claim comes from the President or the Cabinet Secretary in charge of National Security, they become duty-bound to prove the allegations and act for the sake of the credibility of the offices they hold, if not for their own personal credibility.

It is also a good way for office holders to show that they respect the intelligence of not just those they work with but also those to whom their messages are directed.

An ordinary ‘mwananchi’ is not exactly a moron. He or she is a citizen of a country that enjoys one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Some of them are old enough to have witnessed every trick in the Kenyan political bag. Some of them took part in countrywide state-organized demonstrations against a General Odongo and his terror outfit oddly named the February Eighteen Revolutionary Army (FERA).

It was a thrilling episode of euphoric national fiction, organised by the state, invoking the oldest excuse in the book; national security.   

Now, before we burn any effigies, let us have the real suspects this time. Give us the coup plotters. Arrest them dramatically and produce them in the nearest terror or treason court.

But if this is all spin and part of a protracted post-election fallout, then let’s give Kenyans a break by respecting their intelligence and the intelligence of their security and intelligence services.

That’s my take.