04/05/2025
ODM Youth League leader Kasmuel McOure has launched what many are calling an unprecedented public challenge to President William Ruto, demanding justice for slain protesters.
Kasmuel McOure
Dr. William Samoei Ruto,
I write this because I am still alive. And I am alive either because I am a coward, or because I have been spared by chance. I believe it is both—but mostly the former. I write with a quivering voice, unsteady hands, and a disillusioned mind.
Social media may not be the most dignified forum for addressing a Head of State. But it is where you first heard my name. I will not seek a meeting. The gatekeepers around you will not permit it, and even if they did, I would have little to say that has not already been spoken: some of it in the crimson blood of slain youth, some of it in the haunting silence where their laughter once lived, and some of it in the yawning voids they’ve left behind.
Mr. President, I invoke your own story not to flatter, but to awaken your empathy. I do not seek your sympathy. Sympathy is the child of privilege. Empathy, however, is a bridge between equals.
Like you, I am a young man of humble, some might say ignoble, origin. And anyone who has ever been poor never forgets it, no matter how many riches they acquire. My generation carries a burden your generation struggles to define. To us, it is unmistakable. It is called: Justice.
Your peers accuse us of entitlement. Laziness. Fragility. Perhaps. But if we are weak in patience, we are strong in conviction. If we lack decorum, we compensate with moral clarity. When Parliament sought to impose a Finance Bill that would render our lives even more unbearable, we took to the streets—not for clout, but for survival. For bread. For bus fare. For menstrual pads for our lovers, and diapers for our children.
We asked for accountability. For an end to the theft that masquerades as public service. For a debt audit, because our futures are auctioned off every fiscal year. For an end to police brutality. These are not radical demands. They are the bare minimum conditions of a functioning society. But under your administration, they remain mirages.
Since you hold a PhD, permit me to engage you in the language of science—physics, specifically, the laws of motion.
Newton’s First Law: An object remains in a state of rest or motion unless acted upon by an external force.
Kenya’s youth remain unemployed, disillusioned, and depressed—a state-sponsored condition since colonial times. The burden of changing that now sits squarely on your desk, for it is your party that governs—until something else acts upon us.
Newton’s Second Law: Force equals mass times acceleration.
Larger masses require greater force. The youth bulge is an extraordinary mass. And for decades, this country has never summoned the force sufficient to move it. But in the second year of your rule, we found the force ourselves. We rose. We impeached a Parliament that would not hear us. And on June 26th, 2024, you agreed—not by words alone, but by action. You declined to assent to the Bill.
Now, Newton’s Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction
And that, Mr. President, is why I write.
We came to the streets armed with smartphones, water bottles, placards, white handkerchiefs, and roses.
In return, we were met with batons—not to conduct the music we sang, but to break our bones and our spirits. With water cannons—not to quench our thirst, but to drown out our cries for justice. And bullets—that split our skulls open.
The smartphones that once streamed civic education now stream funerals.
The water bottles, once used to rinse tear gas, now overflow with the tears of grieving parents.
The white handkerchiefs now bear the four colours of our flag—but mostly red.
Our placards have turned into obituaries.
Our roses now wither on unmarked graves
Justice has not been done.
The violence we endured has not been answered by any force equal in morality or consequence.
This letter is a request—but also a warning.
If the law does not speak, we shall.
We may be patient—but not forever.
I once shook your hand—not out of allegiance, but out of respect for H.E. Raila Odinga, whom you call your brother. I received nothing for it. No contract. No favour. Yet I see lesser men, less principled, less informed, less accomplished eking millions out of you every day for doing far less than my generation.
I do not want a job. I do not want money.
I want justice.
Shake my hand, Mr. President. I need it now, for my generation. We are nearing a year since the blood of our comrades soaked this soil—and not one of their killers has been brought to justice. Today, you extended clemency to offenders. I ask for a double portion on the other side of the scale.
As the custodian of this republic, I ask for the heads of those who murdered my generation.
This is both a request—and a prophecy.
Your administration is losing the youth.
Not just their votes. Their faith. Their patience. Their fear. We are punished when we speak—and punished when we remain silent.
Our sweat, our tears, and our blood are stolen—daily, publicly, shamelessly. Those who seek your attention and those around you mock our deaths. To them, we are worth less than the watches on their wrists, the truncheons in their fists, or the tracts of land they’ve grabbed.
I may not earn enough in this economy to advise a president, but I have read enough scripture to know this:
If we do not get justice, the writing is already on the wall.
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.
Shake my hand, Mr. President.
It may not change everything.
But it would be the first act in restoring the laws—not just of science, but of justice
Our Constitution is our stone tablet. Hold it high.
Then swing the sword of justice against those who break it in uniform.
The youth are not a special interest group
We are the republic. The median age in Kenya is 19.
I am only one voice in this generation.But I am also one of many leaders within it, serving in the ODM Youth League.
And if I am ever silenced—for whatever reason—millions more will take my place, and speak with greater force and clarity than I ever could.
As a fellow Christian, I leave you with the words of the hymn writer:
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side.
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
’Twixt that darkness and that light.
Which shall you choose?
Regards
Kasmuel McOure
