If you want to understand how protest cycles evolve, look not at the crowds but at the empty streets. On June 25, 2026, Nairobi’s Central Business District was not filled with demonstrators; it was sealed off. Police established roadblocksalong Thika Road, Mombasa Road, Waiyaki Way, and Ngong Road, effectively practising what we call pre-emptive territorial denial—a spatial strategy designed to foreclose the very possibility of assembly. Commuters were stranded, markets shuttered, and public tra