In the heart of Nyeri Town, where chants of protest echoed through the streets and tear gas lingered in the air, Kieni MP Njoroge Wainaina found himself in an unexpected position: locked inside his own supermarket, hiding from the very people he was elected to represent.
On Wednesday, June 25, as demonstrations rocked towns across Kenya in remembrance of the deadly 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests, Nyeri was no exception. Angry crowds flooded the streets, demanding change, justice, and accountability. But as the tide of youth surged through the town center, some turned their anger toward businesses especially those linked to lawmakers seen as complicit in last year’s unpopular Finance Bill.
Wainaina’s supermarket was one such target.
When protesters began converging on the area, the MP reportedly acted fast. In an attempt to avoid the fate of last year when several of his businesses in Nyeri and Nanyuki were looted and burned he locked the doors, barricaded himself inside, and waited.
Outside, chaos intensified. Protesters clashed with police in cat-and-mouse chases, with officers firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling stones. While law enforcement tried to hold the line, they were ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowd.
By mid-afternoon, Wainaina remained inside, alone and largely unguarded, while the streets outside pulsed with unrest.
His fear wasn’t unfounded. In 2024, shortly after it was revealed that he had voted in favor of the controversial tax bill, enraged youth reportedly targeted his businesses in retaliatio looting, torching, and reducing some to rubble.
This year’s protest was more coordinated, more widespread and just as volatile.
Looting was reported not only in Nyeri, but across the country. In Nairobi’s CBD, shops on Mfangano Street were broken into. In Kitengela, fast-food joints were ransacked, cash registers emptied in minutes.
As the dust settles and the country counts its losses, Wainaina’s story an elected official hiding from his own constituents in a supermarket aisle stands as a symbol of the wider political fallout still rippling through Kenya one year on.
