Once upon a time, a man convinced a hyena to help him rule the animal kingdom. The two made a pact: they would share power, and after ten years of ruling the jungle together, the hyena would take over as king. The man believed he could tame the beast, manage its hunger, and keep his family safe. So he opened the gates to his home, let the hyena into his inner circle, and raised it as a partner in governance.

But hyenas don’t forget who they are.

As time passed, the hyena grew restless. It wanted more than power—it wanted to feed. Quietly, it began devouring the man’s children, one by one. The man, blinded by pride, or perhaps paralyzed by the pact, ignored the signs. He told himself this was necessary for stability. He told his children to trust the system. Until one day, he caught the hyena red-handed, drenched in the blood of the future.

He was furious. The pact was broken. Their ten-year dance of deception had ended in betrayal. But instead of confronting the beast himself, the man made a fatal choice: he sent his last surviving children to fight the hyena. One by one, they too were devoured.

Today, that parable plays out in real time across Kenya.

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta, the man in the tale, now resurfaces with messages of revolution and reform. He addresses the youth—Generation Z—as if he is one of them, urging them to rise, to lead, to dismantle a corrupt system. But this is the same man who once shared the jungle with the hyena, President William Ruto. The same man who blessed the beast to take over, honoring a deal they made in the shadows of state power. Uhuru didn’t lose Kenya to Ruto—he handed it to him. And now, as the hyena feasts on the hopes and bodies of protesting youth, Uhuru wants to play savior.

President Ruto’s regime has become everything the hyena symbolized—cunning, vicious, and insatiable. Under his rule, peaceful youth have been gunned down, abducted, silenced, or branded as enemies of the state. He has unleashed his fangs not on rival elites, but on the children of the republic—the very ones who once believed his gospel of hustlers and bottom-up change. But hyenas don’t build. They survive. And now, the nation is bleeding.

It is galling, then, that the man who raised the hyena now acts surprised. Uhuru’s rebirth as an elder of conscience is both convenient and calculated. He watched the hyena circle his family. He smiled during the coronation. He even warned us that Ruto was dangerous—but still handed him the throne. Now he wants the children, already orphaned by betrayal, to fix the mess.

But Gen Z is not gullible. They must rise—but not for recycled kings. Not to clean up the blood spilled by men who once traded power like livestock. They must rise with clarity. With memory. With fury. Because Kenya’s wounds are not just from the hyena’s bite—they are from the man who opened the gate and called it brother.

If the youth are to reclaim their country, they must understand the entire jungle. They must reject both beast and benefactor. They must know that betrayal is not just an act—it’s a legacy. And those who claim to have changed must first confront the past they created.

Ruto is not an aberration. He is a consequence. A contract signed in arrogance. A hyena groomed in public, unleashed in private, and now gnawing at the soul of a nation. He is the product of ten years of silence, of compromise, of a handshake with danger.

The time for illusion is over. Yesterday’s architects of ruin will not redeem Kenya’s future. It will be built by a generation that remembers who fed the hyena, who cheered it on, and who now dares to weep as it feasts.

The hyena eats alone. The man who fed it watches from afar. The children? They bleed.

Cicily Mareta | Political analyst, Kenya
Disclaimer: This piece is protected under journalistic opinion and freedom of expression.

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