Omtatah warns Gen Zs are planning a comeback
Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has warned politicians who are comfortable now that Gen Zs, who once opposed them, have seemingly retracted, saying they are in for a shock because the Gen Zs are silently planning a major comeback.
Speaking during an interview on the Iko Nini podcast on Sunday, April 6, 2025, Omtatah likened the Gen Zs’ movements to how a sheep first steps back a few paces before charging forward to strike someone with a thud, saying this is exactly what they are doing right now.
The senator, who has gained popularity for openly criticising President William Ruto’s regime, insisted that it is false to claim the Gen Z movement has died, maintaining that everyone will soon be shocked by the kind of comeback they are about to stage.
“The Gen Z movement has not died; it’s alive. Those who were making minimal noise have now disappeared. They’ve entered this arena and declared they’ll avoid Egypt, but there are still those who oppose Mwangaza. If you’ve ever watched a ram, it usually walks forward. But when you see it start to pull back, brace yourself. You’ll see it soon.”
Infighting
Omtatah also addressed the recent infighting within the Gen Z movement, which had been praised for its unity, explaining that the infighting was mainly the work of a minority.
He insisted that the majority of Gen Zs are the ones pushing for the government to deliver developments, while noting that there exist two Gen Z factions, as witnessed during the June 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests.
He shared that the first movement was the one protesting from Moi Avenue to Bunge Towers, while the other was the one protesting from Moi Avenue to Muthurwa, and insisted that the latter was the stronger and more genuine one.
“That infighting is from the periphery. The mainstream Gen Zs, those pushing for change, are the majority. There were two movements in Nairobi: one that began at Moi Avenue, heading towards Bunge Towers, and another that started at Moi Avenue and headed towards Muthurwa. The latter was the larger, stronger group, made up of people not necessarily highly educated but in touch with the common people. The small groups fighting on social media don’t represent the core strength of the movement.”
Poor leadership
While at it, Omtatah also defended the Gen Zs, saying the reason they have been unrelenting in faulting the government was mainly because they are not seeing the point in staying in a government that is allowing them to become poorer than their parents.
He insisted that the current government was ensuring that their political fathers were the ones becoming rich while the children were getting poorer and shared that this is not how things should be, as the child is usually expected to get richer than the father.
“The youth want wealth, but they don’t see how they will progress in a country where they are becoming poorer than their parents. Normally, it’s the child who should become wealthier than the parent. But when the majority end up poorer than their parents, that’s a problem.”
He recalled that there was a particular time in the past when he, alongside Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndungu, had written and predicted that Kenya would face a challenging time in its future regarding government and economic revival and shared that the same things they had predicted are exactly what is unfolding.
For instance, he listed that they had warned that Kenya risked collapsing if the government did not prioritise setting up industries where future generations could work or even reforming the education system to favour future generations or getting rid of cartels who were posing as businesspeople but were duping Kenyans on a daily basis.
He coupled that with his thoughts, saying that even now, the problem Kenya still faces and the one that is dragging it behind is poor leadership, and he criticised Ruto’s regime, saying it operates without ethics.
“There was a time when we wrote a letter with Njoki Ndungu before she joined the Supreme Court, and we predicted what is happening now. We predicted that unless we build industries, reform education, and tackle cartels posing as businessmen who are swindling people, the country would implode. The problem facing Kenya today is bad governance—leadership that lacks ethics and relies on stealing public resources.”
Omtatah insisted on his point, saying that the only way out of such predicaments was to have a government that abides fully by the Constitution, saying that with a keen adherence to the Constitution, a leader, despite being corrupt, will not be able to overstretch their corruption to affect the wider citizens.
“That’s why I took a stance that if I don’t see a faction pushing for full implementation of the Constitution, I won’t support anything. Saying you will build a stadium is not a priority; it’s not what truly matters.”
