Raila Odinga Announces Return of Mass Protests in 2024
Raila Odinga Announces Return of Mass Protests in 2024
Raila Odinga, the leader of Azimio la Umoja, declared on Saturday that maandamano will return in 2024.
Raila slammed the government during his speech in Nyanza for raising taxes, which he said had resulted in a difficult economic climate nationwide.
He gave the Kenya Kwanza regime an ultimatum to either remove the taxes or they would bring back maandamano in 2024.
“In this government, you thought that the ‘hustlers’ would hear you. We found out that they were just words. Kenyans felt bad about the situation in 2023,” he stated.
“We told them not to increase taxes but they went ahead and raised the taxes, worsening the situation. These taxes must be revoked, the Finance Act must be removed. If they don’t we will return to the streets in 2024.”
During his speech, Raila further rallied the youth and women from Siaya County to join the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party.
In order to increase the number of people joining the party in anticipation of the grassroots elections in 2024, the head of Azimio has been on a membership drive for the previous few weeks.
Supporters of Azimio had pushed Raila to demand the resumption of large-scale demonstrations in an effort to pressure the Kenya Kwanza government to change some of its policies.
Some of the irreducible minimums, according to Azimio, included removing the government-mandated taxes in order to reduce the cost of living.
Initially, the opposition had canceled the demonstrations in order to facilitate talks through the National Dialogue Committee, which is chaired by Kalonzo Musyoka of the Wiper party and Kimani Ichung’wah, the majority leader of the National Assembly.
President William Ruto approved the committee’s recommendations after hearing the report after lengthy meetings. Conversely, Raila expressed his agreement with the results, albeit with significant caveats. The ideas will be discussed and ultimately adopted by Parliament in January.
