There is something powerful, almost electric, about a movement that is born outside the confines of power. Tuko Kadi did not begin in boardrooms. It was not commissioned, funded, or focus-grouped. It emerged organically, defiantly, from the fingertips of young Kenyans who have grown tired of watching democracy happen to them instead of with them.
Predictably, the political class has shown up. When the President invokes “tuko kadi” in a speech, it is not neutral; it is a strategic political move. Power has a long history of absorbing the language of resistance, polishing it, repackaging it, and returning it emptied of its original urgency. What was once a rallying cry becomes an empty slogan. What was once a challenge becomes a campaign prop.
We have seen this before. In Kenya, the energy of youth-led movements, from the constitutional push leading to the 2010 Kenyan Constitution to more recent waves of civic mobilization, has often been diluted once it begins to threaten the status quo, none more recent than the co-option of the Gen Z movement where a push for reforms was turned into a power trade in which revolutionary demands were exchanged for cabinet posts by the political class.
But here is the truth. Movements lose power the moment they forget who they were built for. Tuko Kadi is not about politicians. It is not about the 2027 campaigns. It is about a generation reclaiming its voice in a system that has repeatedly sidelined it. It is about transforming frustration into participation. Silence into numbers. Numbers into power.
And that is precisely why it is being contested. Because a politically conscious, registered, and mobilized youth population is unpredictable. It cannot be easily managed. It cannot be easily pacified.
So what now?
First, the youth must resist the temptation of validation from power. A movement does not become legitimate because a president or the opposition mentions it. If anything, that is the moment to become more vigilant. Co-option often comes disguised as endorsement.
Second, protect the narrative. The story of Tuko Kadi matters. It must remain clear that this was, is, and will always be a youth-led, non-partisan push for civic participation. The moment that clarity is lost, the movement becomes vulnerable to manipulation.
Third, stay focused on the goal: registration, participation, and servant leadership. Not online battles with political actors seeking relevance in a space they did not build.
Finally, own the moment. History does not remember those who started movements; it remembers those who sustained them. The young people behind Tuko Kadi are standing at a crossroads: either to allow the noise, co-option, and discrediting to fracture the movement, or to sharpen it into something even more powerful. And if the youth remain clear-eyed, grounded, and unyielding, it will not be remembered as a slogan that was borrowed, but as a moment that was seized.