A caricature of Lady Suluhu depicting her unorthodox ruling style
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them.
Dictators have a tendency to believe that they are perfect in when they are nude and therefore no one should point out their inequities. Benito Mussolini, believing that he had the sweetest voice and everybody should listen, once mounted speakers all over Rome disrupting all the business including church and hospital services. Joseph Stalin, a ruthless leader died soaked in his urine because his handlers were too terrified to access him and tell him he needed close care due to his condition.
Benito Mussolini and Mistress Clara Petacci hanged upside down due to public rage (Pencil art by Roberto Paulet, New Zealand)
In early May 2006, the troubled Tanzania lady supremo, Samia Suluhu called on the Kenyan government to cooperate in whipping youth bent on calling for good governance and democracy in East Africa. This is a classic case of a leader so opinioned on her ignorance for universal standards for democracy.
For starters, the youth do not just wake up one day and go to the streets just for fun or as reckless rabble-rousers. They are united by a common cause affecting their daily lives and delusional delinquents. The question should be, if the youth, in their millions, from different backgrounds socially, economically and politically, how do they rally around the idea of uprising? In addition, why is that what millions see, a mere soul can’t see?
The universal right to demonstrate is a fundamental human right protected under international law, primarily through freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression. It allows individuals to publicly protest, express views, and petition authorities, provided the assembly is peaceful and unarmed.
It is therefore important for Suluhu to understand that her efforts to ‘’cage and whip’’ protesting youths is against the tenets of universally accepted universal human rights standards. It is laughable for her to imagine that human rights standards can be replaced by warped village traditions. We might have our cultural norms and traditions as East Africans but if they go against the grain of human rights, they must be discarded.
The East African Confederation has so many issues to deal with in order to make the lives of the member states citizens’ better. One of them is dealing with the ever-growing youth factor in terms of numbers and consciousness. At the age of global advancement in literacy levels, access to information, shrewdness and civic consciousness, it will be foolhardy for anyone to believe that they can mop and put the voices of the youth in a cage- it will burst into a messy state of affairs. This is how the Arab Spring revolution started and the end left dictators mumbling, weeping and gnashing their teeth, some in prison.
Loud and clear, Tanzania youth protesting. (Photo: Getty Images)
The Kenyan President in his response should make the Tanzanian counterpart thinking and stopping the whole plan. It is true that the youth of this time and age are bubbly and full of strength that should be harnessed and channeled positively for the advance of their lives. Any slight misinterpretation to think that the youth of today can be silenced with threats, teargas and state violence will backfire.
Suluhu needs to understand the youth of today can stand up for themselves and eloquently state their issues. Any negative counter measure to stifle that energy and voice will bring out unnecessary revolutions. Actually, it should worry her that during the Tanzania uprising in October/November 2025, youths from East Africa and beyond were supporting the cause willingly and it is documented that youth from non-EAC member states crossed the borders to assist the Tanzania youth.
With a reporting detailing that over 500+ innocent souls were killed by Tanzania state machinery still fresh in her handbag, I think it would be shrewd for the president to call for truce, cohesion and reconciliation. That damning report is a like a deep dark tunnel and she should stop further digging.
My age is out of the youth age bracket but is clear that the Kenyan youth will not entertain, within the law, their rights to demonstrate and picked be clawed back because a bitter head of state elsewhere wants it. We are more than willing to host any disgruntled and exiled Tanzanian youth since in the spirit of East African unity, we are one family that should be grounded on tenets of democracy and human rights as the EAC anthem aptly puts it;
Let us all protect our Community, We should work hard to strengthen it. Our unity is our pillar, So uphold our Community.
This is a great “LIBERATION SITE”