By Monday, May 18 afternoon, Kennedy Kaunda was just another industry representative seated at a long government table, one among dozens of transport stakeholders trying to untangle Kenya’s latest fuel crisis.
By sunset, he had become the internet’s newest folk hero, a man armed with nothing more than a calm voice, a stubborn sense of honesty and four now-immortal words: “With all due respect.”
The phrase exploded across Kenyan social media with the speed of a matchstick tossed into dry grass.
TikTok remixes appeared within hours. X users turned it into memes. WhatsApp groups weaponised it against bosses, landlords, exes and politicians alike.
By Tuesday morning, “with all due respect” had joined the great Kenyan hall of viral phrases, right next to those moments when the country collectively decides humour is the only affordable fuel left.
Yet behind the meme sat a surprisingly cinematic political moment.
The setting itself already felt tense enough to crack glass.
Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi and Transport CS Davis Chirchir had just emerged from nearly five hours of closed-door negotiations over the nationwide transport strike and spiralling fuel prices.
Cameras flickered. Microphones stretched forward like spears. The government side appeared eager to project progress, stability, and movement.
Then came the interruption.
Not loud. Not theatrical. Not chest-thumping.
Just firm.
Kaunda leaned toward the microphones with the composure of a man correcting a restaurant bill.
Television cameras captured the uncomfortable stillness that followed as he calmly dismantled the government’s version of events in real time.
“With all due respect, we did say that we are going to communicate here clearly and openly that we have not agreed so that we carry this conversation forward,” he said.
“We didn’t agree; they gave us KSh10, and we did state KSh35 up to KSh30. That was the communication; with all due respect, we respect each one of us, and that is what we want to go out. The strike is still on.”
And just like that, the atmosphere changed.
It was the political equivalent of someone stopping a wedding midway through the vows to whisper, “Actually, the groom is still texting his ex.”
For a brief second, Kenya watched something unusual unfold live on camera: a citizen publicly contradicting cabinet secretaries without rage, insults or theatrics.
Just blunt clarity wrapped in extraordinary politeness. The contrast made the moment even sharper.
Here was a man disagreeing with power so respectfully that it somehow became more devastating.
The awkward silence afterwards became its own national soundtrack.
Who exactly is Kennedy Kaunda?
Contrary to early online assumptions, he is not a matatu boss or street protest organiser.
Kaunda is the CEO and chairperson of the East Africa Tour Guides and Drivers Association (EATGDA), a body representing tour guides, driver-guides and tourism transport operators across the region.
In quieter times, his work revolves around tourism standards, certification and welfare issues within the transport and hospitality ecosystem. Hardly the profile of a man destined for overnight meme immortality.
But crises have strange casting instincts.
As fuel prices climbed and transport operators demanded diesel reductions of up to KSh 35 per litre, tourism transport providers also found themselves squeezed by soaring operational expenses.
Kaunda attended the negotiations representing that broader pain. According to reports, stakeholders felt the government’s proposed KSh 10 adjustment fell far short of what had been discussed.
What triggered his intervention, he later explained, was the impression being created publicly that an agreement had already been reached when discussions were still unresolved.
“We had a conversation with all stakeholders of the transport sector. The clarion call was that we postpone and go back to consult. Thereafter, they said they need to go back. The offer they had given us, we had not agreed to. So we agreed to call the media and issue a statement,” Kaunda said.
“When Wandayi and Chirchir came into the boardroom, I was taken by surprise when he declared that we had reached an agreement, and that is why my conscience led me to talk to the nation that has been affected by the increment,” he said in an interview with KTN.
That explanation only deepened public fascination with him.
READ ALSO: Gladys Shollei Mocks Matatu Users as Stranded Kenyans Walk Home Hungry
Because in a country where official communication often arrives polished, massaged and sprayed with optimism strong enough to survive a hurricane, Kaunda’s interruption felt almost illegally honest.
Kenyans online described him as fearless, composed and “standing on business”. Others jokingly nominated him for “Cabinet Secretary for Unexpected Holidays”.
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