At the 22nd Nation­al Prayer Break­fast in Nairo­bi, Amer­i­can preach­er and for­mer NFL play­er Rick­ey Bold­en deliv­ered words that brought the room to a hush and, momen­tar­i­ly, a nation to reflection.

Bolden’s ser­mon focused large­ly on the Gen Z in the wake of their protests last year. It spoke to the moral and gen­er­a­tional reck­on­ing that Kenya can no longer ignore. But the ser­mon which was deliv­ered with ener­gy and clar­i­ty, was, more than any­thing, a wider call for nation­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and rebuild­ing of our great nation.

Whether one agrees with Bold­en or not, his remarks should prompt nation­al intro­spec­tion, not about him, but about us. At the fun­da­men­tal lev­el, the ser­mon con­front­ed the gen­er­a­tional frac­ture that has come to define the cur­rent Kenyan expe­ri­ence. It echoed what so many have felt for years but few in lead­er­ship have said aloud: that the country’s youth are not mere­ly the future, they are the now. And that a nation can­not heal if it refus­es to listen.

Of course, it is easy to reduce Bolden’s ser­mon to a mere rebuke of the Pres­i­dent and the entire Exec­u­tive branch of gov­ern­ment, and that it was, but what the for­mer Amer­i­can ath­lete deliv­ered on Wednes­day, was a deep­er mes­sage that invites all of us to sum­mon our patri­ot­ic spir­it and dis­pas­sion­ate­ly eval­u­ate the real state of our nation. Just how inclu­sive are our schools, our church­es, our work places? Do the young peo­ple real­ly feel they have a stake and a say?

If we are seri­ous about rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and open­ing a new chap­ter, we must acknowl­edge that the anger of the youth has not erupt­ed in a vac­u­um. It is the prod­uct of years of exclu­sion, sys­temic inequal­i­ty, and erod­ed trust in key insti­tu­tions. Young peo­ple see cor­rup­tion go unpun­ished while they are told to tight­en their belts. They watch elites trade places across coali­tions while their cries for reform go unan­swered. They hear ser­mons on moral­i­ty while watch­ing the cler­gy remain silent in the face of injus­tices, or swin­dle hard-earned cash from poor Kenyans. They are encour­aged to inno­vate, even as well-con­nect­ed elites prof­it from pub­lic con­tracts with­out trans­paren­cy. This can­not be allowed to con­tin­ue. Rebuild­ing trust will require not just gov­ern­ment reform, but a renew­al of integri­ty across all insti­tu­tions that shape our moral and civic life.

This mes­sage should be a wake-up call for all of us. The worst thing we can do with such a time­ly voice, is to be defen­sive and dis­mis­sive. We must make tan­gi­ble steps to start tack­ling Kenya’s peren­ni­al prob­lems sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, just­ly, and with resolve. This will require a renewed ded­i­ca­tion to job cre­ation, a more equi­table tax sys­tem, greater trans­paren­cy in pub­lic spend­ing; and reforms that close the gap between priv­i­leged elite and mil­lions of Kenyans strug­gling to make a living.

The youth, who have forced this nation­al moment upon us, must not relent. But they must change tack and remain civ­il. The same social media plat­forms that pow­ered the Gen Z protests and gal­vanised a nation around a shared cause must not become echo cham­bers that iso­late, offend, and repel. If the strug­gle for a bet­ter Kenya is defined by ridicule and tear­ing oth­ers down, it risks alien­at­ing the very soci­ety it seeks to trans­form. Change must be dis­rup­tive, yes, but it must not be destruc­tive. Our young peo­ple can­not afford to lose moral high ground to the same sys­tem they are critiquing.

Final­ly, the polit­i­cal class should give us a break. The next Gen­er­al Elec­tion is a whole two years away, yet the noise from polit­i­cal plat­forms is already at fever pitch. We are a frac­tured nation, and the longer politi­cians esca­late ten­sions with end­less cam­paigns and divi­sive rhetoric, the greater the dan­ger we face. What Kenya needs now is not the ongo­ing din, but focused and pur­pose­ful lead­er­ship. Lead­ers must low­er the polit­i­cal tem­per­a­ture, focus on ser­vice deliv­ery, and pro­vide space for the coun­try to breathe, reflect, and rebuild. Think Green, Act Green!