Celebrating a Coup That Shook a Dictatorship, Yet Failed to Dismantle It
On August 1st, 1982, a group of Kenya Air Force servicemen led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka and Sergeant Pancras Oteyo Okumu attempted to overthrow the regime of Daniel arap Moi, a man who had entrenched a brutal one-party dictatorship under the Kenya African National Union (KANU). Through the self-declared People’s Redemption Council, the coup leaders sought to end a regime defined by corruption, tribalism, dictatorship, human rights violations, unemployment, and political marginalisation—all hallmarks of the Kenyan capitalist state. The coup ultimately failed, but its motivations remain strikingly relevant 43 years later.
After the failed coup, Moi consolidated his power with unprecedented ruthlessness: detentions without trial, extrajudicial assassinations, political cultism, tribalism, corruption and the fusion of party and state as KANU became “Mama na Baba” of the nation. The Air Force was disbanded and rebuilt from scratch. The surviving coup plotters were either hanged—like Ochuka and Okumu—or driven into exile. Coup plotters such as Raila Amolo Odinga were sent to detention without trial, Martin Ngatia, Onyango Sumba, Opwapo Ogae, Karundi Mathenge, Jack Mulo (all deceased) and Waore Dianga fled to Sweden, where they formed anti-Moi movements. They kept the resistance alive in exile as they tried to link up with the struggle in Kenya. Other coup plotters scattered.
While the coup lacked a revolutionary political programme and risked replacing one authoritarian order with another, its core demands reflected the same grievances that plague Kenya to this day. The tragedy is not only that the coup failed—it is that the revolution it sought remains incomplete.
Multiparty Politics Without Ideology: The Triumph of Capitalist Uniformity
The 1990 reintroduction of multiparty democracy in Kenya marked a historic retreat by the Moi regime under pressure from domestic protest and global trends. Section 2A of the Constitution was repealed, allowing for the emergence of opposition parties. But this shift, widely celebrated as a democratic breakthrough, was in fact an ideologically barren moment. While one-party dictatorship receded, capitalist domination remained firmly intact.
Key opposition figures—Kenneth Matiba, Mwai Kibaki, Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro, Paul Muite—failed to offer a transformative vision. Their parties, though vocally anti-Moi, were politically bankrupt, lacking any coherent ideology to challenge the system. Even long-standing socialists like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and George Moseti Anyona abandoned Marxist principles to form pro-capitalist parties, aligning themselves with neoliberal orthodoxy and foreign donor expectations.
By embracing the logic of privatisation, structural adjustment, and IMF/World Bank dictates, these new political outfits offered no departure from the Moi regime’s economic model. The result? Kenya exchanged dictatorship for bourgeois electoral competition, where political elites differ in name, but not in ideology. No anti-capitalist formation emerged to fill the void. Mwakenya, the underground socialist movement that had bravely resisted Moi, disappeared from the scene just as the field opened for legal political contestation.
A Constitution Betrayed: When Hyenas Guard the People’s Charter
The 2010 Constitution, promulgated in 2012, was hailed as one of the most progressive in Africa. It promised devolution, transparency, human rights, and checks on executive power. Yet, 13 years later, it remains a paper tiger. The reason is simple: it was left in the hands of hyenas to implement. The very capitalist elite the Constitution sought to restrain became its custodians.
President William Ruto, like his predecessors, has weaponized the Constitution when convenient and ignored it when necessary. Since taking power, he has violated it at least 37 times—a staggering display of impunity. These violations range from illegal appointments and budgetary manipulation to unlawful security crackdowns and interference in judicial affairs. But Ruto is not the anomaly—he is the product of a system built to serve elite interests.
Despite multiparty politics and constitutional reform, poverty, unemployment, inequality, corruption, and repression remain deeply embedded in Kenyan life. Why? Because the system itself—capitalism—remains untouched. No Constitution, however progressive, can emancipate the masses if the ruling class remains committed to exploitative economic arrangements and resists redistribution of power and wealth.
Where Is the Kenyan Left?
The failure of the Kenyan Left to emerge in the 1990s remains one of the great missed opportunities of post-colonial African politics. At a time when the door to multiparty participation swung open, the Kenyan socialist movement was scattered, unprepared, and ideologically confused—reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global retreat of Marxist thought. Leaders like Mwandawiro Mghanga were still in exile, while cadres were disillusioned or lacked the means to mobilize politically.
Understandably, the Left was blindsided. But 43 years later, the inaction is no longer excusable. The Left cannot continue to blame history or exile for its absence. While capitalist parties have enjoyed four decades of unchallenged dominance, the Kenyan Left has failed to build a party, contest elections, or present a coherent socialist alternative. The ideological space is still wide open, and unless occupied, Kenya will remain a capitalist graveyard for the hopes of the majority.
It is time for ideologically conscious Kenyans to reclaim the public space, organize, and contest power—not merely to win elections, but to revolutionize political discourse. There is no alternative to tribalism without class-based politics. Until class replaces tribe as the axis of political identity, Kenya will remain vulnerable to ethnic manipulation and elite fragmentation.
The Future Looks Like the Past—Unless We Change Course
Today, on the 1st of August 2025, Kenyans are still haunted by the same ghosts that moved Ochuka and his comrades to action: state violence, inequality, joblessness, marginalisation,corruption, and political mediocrity. The actors have changed, the rhetoric is new, the institutions have modern facades—but the system remains rotten to the core.
William Ruto, like Moi, Kibaki, and Uhuru before him, inherited a failed capitalist state and is now expanding it under the guise of populist reform. But Ruto has no political alternative to offer; he operates within the same ideological script that has failed Kenya for six decades. And unless political consciousness rises—unless young people begin to ask hard ideological questions—the next 20 years will look no different.
We must therefore celebrate the spirit of August 1st, not as a call for another military coup, but as a reminder that true transformation requires more than new faces and fancy laws. It demands ideological clarity, political courage, and class-based mobilization.
The Left must rise—not tomorrow, not in theory, but now, in practice. Until then, capitalism will continue to cannibalize the country, and the dream of liberation will remain deferred.
Ochuka may have fallen, but the struggle he represented must now be reborn—not in the barracks, but in the minds and movements of a new generation.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
A great article my friend! Yes, where is the left? Who can fill the void?
The biggest problem facing Kenya is TRIBALISM.
Unless the GenZ overcome this then politics of IDEOLOGY will remain a mirage.
This is a great analysis. The Left in Kenya, just as in Uganda and Tanzania, has not yet found its center of gravity. The messaging of the Left is poor, and lacks ideological clarity. The capitalist ruling class, though few in numbers, have the capacity to corrupt and bribe the youth by offering illusion of employment, development, and economic growth. It is imperative for the youth to know who is on their side. This article goes a long way in articulating the point.