Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has cautioned politicians against making statements that could disrupt learning during the planned June 25 demonstrations.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

While speaking during a church service at AIC Langata, Nairobi, on June 21, Murkomen specifically targeted leaders who have publicly called for schools and businesses to shut down during the protests, terming such utterances deeply irresponsible.

He warned that when leaders tell children to stay home on demonstration days, those same children carry that message into classrooms, normalising defiance.

“ I have seen that this week some people are saying that they want to do mandamano and all that; our constitution allows every citizen to protest, to picket, to demonstrate and to present petitions under article 37 of the constitution,” stated Murkomen.

📌 What You Need to Know

“So when you are exercising article 37 right to picket, to demonstrate, to do all this, it is not to say your right to protest, to demonstrate is greater than the right of our children to go to school.”

The CS argued that such statements are silently shaping bad behaviour in children, with young ones mimicking what they hear from public figures.

He insisted that the right to protest does not override the right of children to access education, stressing that both rights are protected under the same constitution.

Murkomen was clear that no politician, however senior, has the authority to weaponise demonstrations against learning institutions or livelihoods.

This was in direct response to Siaya Governor James Orengo, who defended the upcoming June 25 protests, stating that they are about honouring victims and supporting grieving mothers, not politics.

“Now when you get a leader, even to the level of a senior council, leaders who have been in this country, standing in public and say we are having demonstrations but no child will go to school, businesses will stop, everybody will stay home, that is a very responsible statement because our children listening to such a leader will also be going back to school tomorrow and tell the teachers tomorrow we have our demonstrations, we are not going to class, we are not going to do this,” stated Murkomen.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke