A year after businesses burned and traders counted billions in losses, this year’s demonstrations unfolded with a restraint many Kenyans had almost forgotten.
Last year on 25th June 2025, traders locked their shops before dawn, parents rushed children home and business owners waited nervously as protests that had begun peacefully were overtaken by criminal elements.
By the end of the day, parts of Nairobi and several towns across the Mt Kenya region had witnessed looting, arson and destruction that left businesses counting billions of shillings in losses while families mourned lives lost.
However, yesterday felt remarkably different.
From Nairobi to Nyeri, Karatina, Murang’a, Embu and other towns across the Mt Kenya region, the feared wave of looting that many had braced for largely failed to materialize. While little demonstrations took place in several areas, the widespread destruction that defined the 2025 anniversary was notably absent.
For thousands of business owners, that difference meant everything.
Eventhough many opened cautiously, expecting the worst, by evening, most had closed their premises with their stock intact. For once, the conversation after this year’s maandamano was less about burnt buildings and more about the fact that they were still standing.
On Wednesday, speaking from his Wamunyoro residence, DCP leader Rigathi Gachagua urged demonstrators in the Mt Kenya region to avoid destroying businesses and property and called on those intent on causing destruction to stay away from the streets.
A direct appeal which influenced events and kept looters at bay, and made the scale of criminal activity witnessed during last year’s anniversary not recur across much of the region.
Last year Kenyans witnessed genuine protesters take to the streets to air legitimate grievances but somewhere along the way, criminal elements emerge. Shops are broken into, businesses are looted, vehicles are torched and public infrastructure is vandalized. By nightfall, politicians trade accusations while ordinary wananchi are left counting their losses.
Almost every political camp has blamed shadowy “goons” whenever violence erupts during peaceful demonstrations. Yesterday offered a different picture.
Activists demonstrated with ecurity agencies maintaining a heavy presence in Nairobi and its environs. Businesses remained on edge.
Yet in many places, the feared descent into widespread looting never happened. That difference raises uncomfortable but necessary questions.
If protests can proceed without widespread destruction, was some of the violence seen in previous demonstrations inevitable? Or was it the work of criminal opportunists taking advantage of moments of national tension?
These are questions Kenyans have asked for years.
The experience of June 25, 2026, suggests that peaceful protest and protection of property need not be mutually exclusive. Kenyans can exercise their constitutional right to demonstrate without traders paying the price for disputes in which they have no part.
For business owners in Nairobi and across Mt Kenya, yesterday was proof that a demonstration does not have to end with burnt shops, broken livelihoods and another long list of insurance claims.
After a year in which fear overshadowed commerce, many traders returned home with something they had almost stopped expecting on major protest days, the certainty that they would open their businesses again the following morning.
Perhaps that, more than any political statement, was the biggest story of June 25, 2026.
