Former Prime Minister Raila Amollo Odinga has called for a national convention to address the growing crisis of lawlessness and intolerance in the wake of deadly protests around Nairobi.
Speaking at a function in Bondo, Siaya County on Sunday 29 June, 2025 the opposition scion condemned equally the wanton destruction by some protestors and the excessive force applied by police.
Raila said such trends if allowed unchecked would drift the nation into anarchy.
“We have witnessed a lot of bloodshed in our country recently. People who went out to demonstrate—some of them died, some of them were shot by police because they are criminals who came out to do deliberate destruction of property. We need to talk about these things,” said Raila.
While acknowledging that some criminal elements hijacked peaceful protests to advance individual interests he still criticized the police service for acting with brutality “unacceptable to a civilized society”.
Raila said that the only way out of the quagmire was meaningful and inclusive dialogue.
“Kenya is a civilized society. We need a national convention to talk about such law and order issues,” said Raila.
The veteran politician also took a calculated swipe at Interior CS Onesmus Kipchumba Murkomen saying his shoot-to-kill remarks were rather unfortunate. Raila further condemned the Murkomen directive warning that such utterances threaten constitutional freedoms and could amount to criminal behaviour by State officials.
“Tumeona umwagikaji wa damu nyingi sana hapa nchini. Watu waliokuwa na haki ya kuandamana, wengine wao walikufa. Anybody giving instructions to a police officer that mtu akikaribia police station piga risasi…. we should not encourage, taking away of life, in a way that is not constitutional. somebody is committing a crime, that person should be subjected to…(sic).. that person should be taken to court of law and charged and then sentence,” said Raila.
The demonstrations which were called to commemorate the first anniversary of the June 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests martyrs spiralled into an orgy of looting, bloodshed and destruction of property.
Raila called on leaders to map out strategies including thinking up the formation of a national convention to openly deliberate on matters of law, order, civil responsibility, and justice.
Additional, unverified reports have stated that Raila chided those aimlessly making calls for Wantam without having any proper strategies to redeem Kenyans.
Figures issued by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) claimed 19 people died from the Wednesday 25 June,2025 mayhem. Property on Luthuli Avenue was damaged to the tune of hundreds of millions.
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