Kenya is on the upswing. I can feel it.

This past weekend, Nyayo Stadium was loud. The Safari Sevens came back for its 28th edition, and on Sunday the final was an all-Kenyan affair: Shujaa against Kenya Morans. Shujaa won 24-5 and kept the title at home. The Lionesses did the same, beating Uganda 22-5 to finish five from five.

But honestly, the scores aren't what stayed with me. It was the people. Families, friends, students, people who had driven in from upcountry. Music between the matches. That feeling you can't buy: Kenyans in one place, happy, together.

I want to say something that sounds strange given how hard things are right now. Kenya is on the upswing. I can feel it. Let me explain why, without pretending the hard parts aren't there.

First, the honest part

Living in Kenya right now is not easy. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't buying their own unga.

Inflation hit 6.8% in September, the highest in a year, with food up 9.5% and transport up 15.6% on the year before. The World Bank warned in July that between one million and 2.4 million more Kenyans could slide into poverty by the end of 2026. Public debt sits around 69% of GDP, and more than a third of government revenue goes just to paying interest. Ask anyone what the country's biggest problems are and you'll hear the same two words over and over: jobs and corruption.

And that's the part that hurts the most. Much of this pain isn't bad luck. It's money that was meant for roads, hospitals and schools that somehow never reached them. Systems that should work, don't. People who were trusted to look after the country, haven't.

The heavy years

If you lived here from 2020 onwards, you know the weight I'm talking about. COVID came with curfews and lockdowns, and life just stopped. Businesses closed. People lost jobs. Weddings, matches, concerts, the things that make us us, all gone.

Then, just as we came out of that, the cost of living hit. Prices up, taxes up, money nowhere. Stack all of that on top of poor governance and it felt like a slow, national depression. A lot of us were just getting through the day.

But something happened in that darkness that I don't think we talk about enough.

We found each other

Being down that low together taught us something: at the end of the day, we only have each other. Nobody is coming to save us. If our situation is going to change, we are the ones who will change it.

You saw it in 2024, when a generation that everyone said didn't care stood up over the Finance Bill and refused to be quiet. Organised online, no tribe, no party, just Kenyans. Whatever your politics, it was a turning point. Kenyans stopped taking nonsense lying down.

And you can see it now in a softer, happier way. People are going out again. Spending again. Laughing again. Online, the timelines are full of people hyping each other up, sharing the old songs, the old slang, the things we used to love. We're bringing our culture back.

Look at our own artists. Nameless held a 25-year anniversary concert at the Carnivore in August, and it sold out about eight weeks before the show. Kenyans paying to celebrate Kenyan music, made by Kenyans, for Kenyans. The Safari Sevens line-up had Nameless, Mejja and Breeder LW playing between rugby matches. A few years ago, that energy wasn't there. Now it is.

Thank you, Kibaki

I want to give credit where it's due. When President Kibaki introduced free primary education in 2003, enrolment jumped from about 5.9 million pupils to 7.2 million in a single year. Then came subsidised day secondary school in 2008.

That did more than teach us to read. A whole generation went to school together. In secondary, especially in national and extra-county schools, you sat next to someone from Kisumu, someone from Mombasa, someone from Nyeri, someone from Garissa. You shared meals, beds, punishments and dreams. You stopped seeing a tribe and started seeing a friend.

I think we're seeing the fruit of that now. We're one. We want the best for each other. We're not competing with each other. The enemy isn't the guy from the other county. The enemy is poverty.

Look at what we're sitting on

Now zoom out and look at what this country actually has.

• Tourism: 2.7 million international visitors in 2025, about 9% more than the year before, and around 7.9 million trips counting Kenyans touring their own country. The sector earned roughly Ksh 500 billion, a record.
• Wildlife and land: the Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo, the coast, the Rift Valley. People save for years to see what we drive past.
• Agriculture: tea, coffee, flowers, horticulture, and land that can feed far more people than it does today.
• Minerals, energy and a tech scene the world already calls the Silicon Savannah. The same country that gave the world M-Pesa.
• Confidence from outside: Moody's upgraded Kenya's credit rating in January 2026, pointing to lower default risk and foreign reserves of about $12.2 billion at the end of 2025.

We're not a huge country. We're a happy people. And across Africa, a lot of our brothers and sisters look at Kenya and see a people who speak up for themselves and fight for what's theirs. That reputation is worth something. Investors notice it too.

I'll be honest with myself here: we're not self-reliant yet. We still import a lot of what we eat and borrow a lot of what we spend. But we have the land, the people and the brains to get there. The gap between where we are and where we could be isn't talent. It's management.

What it will take

Get the leadership right and the rest of this country takes care of itself. Honest people managing public money honestly. Systems that work for the mama mboga as well as they work for the big companies. With the next general election coming in 2027, that conversation is ours to have.

And on our side, keep doing what we've started. Support our own artists, our own businesses, our own teams. Keep showing up for each other. Keep speaking up. Don't let anyone convince us that being Kenyan means settling.

Push a little harder, a little longer, and I genuinely believe that in a few years Kenya can be a place nobody wants to leave and everyone wants to visit. A home. A paradise, even. Not because someone handed it to us, but because we refused to let it be anything less.

We're on the upswing. Let's not let it go.