The Mt Kenya Times 
Goons Stormed a Church in Kisumu attack Linda Mwananichi leaders led James Orengo and Edwin Sifuna
By Jerameel Kevins Owuor Odhiambo
Facts stare back at us like unblinking witnesses if happenings of the recent past are anything to go by. Last Sunday, goons those shadowy enforcers of political will descended upon gatherings linked to Linda Mwananchi, opposition voices daring to question the chorus of the day. Stones flew. Meetings dissolved into chaos. Reports of armed gangs disrupting rallies have become whispers turning into roars across counties. Police stand accused of selective blindness, sometimes colluding, other times simply melting away. This is not rumor; it is the slow bleed of public order, captured in videos that spread like wildfire on Kenyan phones, from matatu touts to university hostels. Goonicracy, this governance by hired muscle, tightens its grip.
Chinua Achebe once warned in his unflinching prose that “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” How prophetic his words ring in our republic today? The centre, that fragile idea of constitutional pluralism, now hosts not statesmen but sponsors of street-level tyranny. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, that tireless voice against neocolonial chains, spoke of how power devours its own children when it forgets the people’s tongue. Here we are, decades after independence, still speaking the language of coercion only this time, the whips are wielded by our own, dressed in the borrowed robes of “broad-based” unity.
Observe the irony, that delicious antiphrasis dancing in plain sight: a government that claims to represent all Kenyans unleashes goons on those who simply refuse to sing its hymn. Tolerance, we are told, is the bedrock of democracy. Yet the recipients of this “tolerance” are opposition figures whose meetings are crashed with ruthless precision. Rhetorical question begs: if pluralism is our constitutional song, why does the state orchestra hire thugs to silence dissenting notes? The youths energetic, job-hungry, idealistic find themselves cast as disposable actors in a tragic script written by political masters. They block roads, hurl insults, and sometimes worse, all in the name of “defending” a regime that promises them heaven tomorrow while paying them peanuts today.
This is no isolated fever; it is a deepening infection. Political violence, once the ghost of 2007 that we swore never to summon again, now struts openly. Armed gangs do not emerge from thin air. They are fed, transported, and pointed like arrows at targets. The police, those sworn guardians of peace, face accusations of partisanship from the top organs down to the officer on the dusty beat. Some discharge their duty with honour, no doubt, but when collusion becomes pattern, the uniform loses its sanctity. One cannot help but allude to the Rwandan mirror: a nation that stared into the abyss of ethnic slaughter and chose, painfully, to build anew. Kenya, blessed with a different history, seems intent on flirting with the same precipice. We forget our own post-election nightmares at our peril. As the poet once cried in smitten verses, sometimes war must teach us the true taste of peace.
Sarcasm drips heavy here: how noble, these goons, protecting “stability” by smashing the very gatherings meant to strengthen it. The broad-based government, that grand coalition of interests, risks being devoured by the beast it rides. Politicians who deploy these instruments of manipulation, coercion, and dominance forget Achebe’s cautionary tale the hyena that laughs while digging its own grave. Goons do not retire gracefully when their utility ends. They evolve, demand more, and eventually turn on the hand that fed them. History across Africa whispers this truth: from hired militias in one republic to state-sponsored enforcers in another, the tool of intimidation becomes the master.
Even so let us analyse with cold intellectual clarity, not mere emotion. Goonicracy threatens more than rallies; it erodes national cohesion. Citizens’ rights to associate, assemble, and participate the blood of Article 37 of our Constitution are violated under the guise of order. When opposition cannot meet without fear, debate dies. When debate dies, ideas stagnate. When ideas stagnate, the economy falters, investors flee uncertainty, and the youth again those same youths sink deeper into jobless despair. This is not opposition propaganda; it is cause and effect, laced with data from past cycles. Each incident in Nyandarua or Kisumu is a domino. The next election, if patterns hold, risks becoming another theatre of imported chaos. Police inaction, or worse, selective action, signals to perpetrators that the state winks.
Ngugi wa Thiong’o taught us in Petals of Blood about the betrayal of the post-independence elite, how they replaced colonial masters only to become new ones. Are we witnessing a local variant? The allusion stings because it fits too snugly. Goons are not born; they are nurtured in poverty’s soil, watered by political promises, and harvested for short-term gain. The opposition, too, must reflect: violence begets violence, and descending to the same tactics solves nothing. Balance demands this mirror. Yet the scale tips heavily when state resources and tolerance appear to enable one side. Intellectual prowess requires acknowledging that every regime faces dissent; the test of maturity is how it engages it. Not with stones and sticks, but with superior arguments and transparent governance.
Why must goonicracy be tamed, strangled fully, buried deep? Because it teeters the nation on the edge. Streets belong to citizens, not rented muscle. Political space must breathe pluralism, not suffocate under fear. The signs are glaring: increasing boldness of armed gangs, partisan security responses, normalization of disruption. Left unchecked, it invites the very instability it claims to prevent. Youths used as pawns must awaken your future is not in another man’s temporary throne. Leaders at the helm, from Cabinet to county, should remember: power is a trust, not a licence for thuggery.
In this reflective provocation, one sees the paradox unfolding. A “united” government fracturing the nation through division. Tolerance preached while intolerance practiced. Democracy guarded by its antithesis. Kenya, land of resilient citizens’, has danced this dance before. We survived. We can choose better. The time to strangle this goonicracy is now through vigilant citizenry, independent institutions, and leaders with the courage to lead by example, not by enforcement.
Let the centre hold. Let things not fall apart. For in the words of our literary giants, the alternative is a darkness we have already glimpsed, and from which we must forever turn.
The writer is a social commentator
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