{"id":22992,"date":"2024-07-03T08:46:23","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T08:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biografrica.com\/?p=22992"},"modified":"2024-11-24T14:12:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T14:12:16","slug":"rejectfinancebill2024-protests-in-kenya-did-kenya-just-witness-her-own-soro-soke-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biografrica.com\/rejectfinancebill2024-protests-in-kenya-did-kenya-just-witness-her-own-soro-soke-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"#RejectFinanceBill2024 Protests in Kenya:\u00a0 Did Kenya Just Witness Her Own Soro Soke Movement?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
On the 20th<\/sup> day of October 2021 which was the anniversary of the Soro Soke<\/a> movement (aka the EndSARS protest), I wrote<\/a> something prophetic about the movement which was witnessed in Nigeria thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cthe EndSARS is a harbinger or a catalyst to future revolts\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I had made the above prediction not because I had any divine or spiritual revelation that the Soro Soke movement would birth future revolts in Africa but because of my understanding of the contagious nature of revolution which, from its checkered history, has always outlived the time and place where it occurred and emboldened other oppressed people in other climes into standing up to their oppressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not up to four years after the Nigerian government managed to quench the Soro Soke uprisings, a movement of a similar coloration appears to have reared its head in Kenya. The ongoing mass protest in Kenya (hashtagged #RejectFinanceBill2024<\/a>) which is staged by Kenyan citizens against their government\u2019s plan to increase taxes substantially mirrors the Soro Soke movement which was witnessed in Nigeria sometime in October 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To start with, both are and were mass protests organized by aggrieved citizens against specific tools deployed by their respective states to oppress them or to inflict hardship on them. While the Soro Soke movement was staged by Nigerians against the abusive and extortionist antics of an infamous police unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Kenya\u2019s RejectFinanceBill2024 protest is an uprising by the people of Kenya against another tool of state oppression – harsh taxation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n