IS MAANDAMANO THE SOLUTION TO THE HIGH COST OF LIVING IN KENYA.

The recently concluded Maandamano that happened on Monday, that was organized by the opposition protesting the high cost of living, has sparked different of reactions from Kenyans given the fact that not all Kenyans are in support of it. The nationwide protests saw many businesses across the country being closed down. The few businessmen and women that had the courage to open ended up closing their businesses because of fear of being looted and lack of customers since most people had stayed home in order to avoid confrontation with the protestors and the police and also because Raila had declared Monday a national holiday. According to Raila Odinga, the opposition leader the protests are meant to coerce the government to lower the cost of a packet of Unga and to reduce the high cost of living in the country. But are the protests really going to help recover the economy? We have already seen that most businesses were closed down during the Monday protests and if this continues to take place every Monday and Thursdays as proposed by Raila, most Kenyans will have nothing to put on the table due to lack of an income source. We might end up having a complete economic shutdown in future. Raila claimed that the protests were going to be peaceful but were they really peaceful if they led to a supermarket being looted in Tassia, Embakasi in Nairobi. The protests are only causing more unrest in the country as we’ve seen the exchanges as the police try to disperse the protesting wananchi. For instance, on Monday, we saw that a student from Maseno University was shot dead. We will only end up losing more innocent lives on the streets if this continues. If the protests continue as planned, schools will have to be closed because we the lives of students will be at risk. This will end up ruining the academic calendar that has just gone back to normal after it was ruined by the lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. What is looming in the future for us is far worse than what we are already experiencing. The protests are going to scare away potential investors thus will make us lose a lot of development opportunities. Our tourism sector is also facing a very high risk because no one will visit an insecure country and as we all know tourism is one of our main sources of revenue. As much as it is true that we are struggling economically, I believe that Raila can find other ways to communicate other than to stage protests that only make the situation worse. He can use other means to try and communicate to the government. I believe that the president was already working on a way to help reduce the high cost of living since he was sworn into power to an already failing economy. Personally, I believe that maandamano is not the solution and we are only making it worse for ourselves. I wish that other Kenyans could wake up and see the reality of things. Dear Mr. President, the whole world is watching and I would like to urge you to please find a solution quickly before our economy completely fails.