Why the buck stops with Ruto on abductions

Plain cloth police officers arrest a protestor during anti-government demonstrations along Moi Avenue in Nairobi, on July 16, 2024. [File, Standard]

Desperately trying to secure his son’s release from captivity, a distressed Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi knew only one person could help – President William Ruto.

His statement to investigative agencies on Tuesday painted a helpless man who had tried everything to locate his son, Leslie Muturi, abducted then by persons he said were National Intelligence Service agents.

Never mind he was the Attorney General, the government’s lead legal advisor. He was also a member of the National Security Council (NSC), which oversees all security organs. The situation exposes the dysfunctionality of top State organs.

“You would imagine the NSC operates in a coordinated and strategic way,” said constitutional lawyer Bobby Mkangi. “Kenyans set it up to ensure the entity’s decisions are made in a collegiate manner but the statement exposes the fact that the NSC is not working together,” he added.

Muturi’s position then is one in which countless parents have found themselves since last year’s youth-led revolt over proposed tax hikes. They spend their days searching for their children and sleepless nights hoping their young ones abducted and held incommunicado for days on end, would return home safely.

The parents of such youngsters are more helpless as they do not enjoy as much privilege as Muturi, who has top security officials on speed dial and could drive into State House like he said he did.

If only it were as easy for them to have their children released as Muturi had his let free from the hands of alleged intelligence officers. Rights groups have argued that it is easy for the Head of State to end the abductions as the buck stops with him.

READ: Is NIS the abductor in chief?: CS Muturi links top spy agency to abductions

Last month, Dr Ruto accepted this responsibility, saying he would end abductions of government critics. “What has been said about abductions, we will stop them so Kenyan youth can live in peace, but they should have discipline and be polite so that we can build Kenya together,” the President said in Homa Bay.

At the time, six young men – Gideon Kibet, Bernard Kavuli, Peter Muteti, Billy Mwangi, Rony Kiplangat and Steve Kavingo – who had either shared cartoons or AI-generated images of Ruto, were abducted.

The President was under pressure to secure their release, and security agencies were challenged to produce them in court if they had violated any law.

Weeks of pressure saw some of them released, even as the National Police Service, led by Inspector General Douglas Kanja, denied it had held them.

The police had previously denied abducting the ‘Kitengela Three’ activists – Bob Njagi and brothers Jamil and Aslam Longton – who were released hours before then-acting Police Inspector General Gilbert Masengeli was to appear in court.

President William Ruto holding a cup of tea. [PCS]

Ruto had made similar promises of ending abductions at the height of the Generation Z protests of June/ July last year. At an X Space engagement with young Kenyans, Ruto said he had been shocked by the experiences some of the abducted Kenyans underwent. He promised accountability for those killed and abducted, allegedly by security agents.

Had the Head of State kept his campaign promises, there would be no abductions during his presidency. Ruto had campaigned about the excesses of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime, in which he served as deputy president.

He called his predecessor out for “weaponising” the criminal justice system and using security agencies to crush political dissent. He was particularly alarmed by cases involving abductions and enforced disappearances, saying he had fired former Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti over the existence of a police crack unit that brutalized Kenyans.

In the last two years, Ruto’s government has been judged by many as guilty of the crimes he had accused others of committing.

Abductions have gone on unabated. Security agencies have fed the masses with denials, prompting threats of retaliation by the public, which have materialized in recent weeks. Over the last few days, Kenyans have actively prevented arrests by persons in unmarked vehicles.

“It was bound to happen. When people feel insecure they will want to know what is happening. If the State says they don’t know the people abducting them it creates confusion and the citizens will start viewing those coming in unmarked vehicles as thugs,” said Mr Mkangi.

“Wananchi have no choice but to challenge them as they feel that maybe they will see changes and things will be in order. But that could present a problem because it challenges even legitimate police operations,” he added.

Critics of foreign governments, too, have fallen victim to the kidnappers. The most recent incident involved Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi. Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye was kidnapped in Nairobi last November, a month after four Turkish nationalists were seized by state agents and repatriated.

Observers have warned that the abduction of foreign nationals threatens to dent the nation’s human rights image.

ALSO READ: Is Nairobi becoming a haven for abductions?

“If a member of the Cabinet like Muturi can have his child abducted the way he was, then nobody is safe. We have turned our country into a laughing stock. We are now compared to and spoken of in terms similar to countries that we shouldn’t be compared to,” Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said yesterday on Spice FM.

He argued that Ruto could no longer deny knowledge of the abductions that government officials have previously denied was happening.

“There is no way the Head of State can tell the country that he doesn’t know who is doing these things. If you go to the President – luckily for Muturi he has access to him – and tell him ‘Hey, bro, release my son’ and he makes one phone call and the kid is released, that tells you the person doing it… the person with power and the person saying he can stop things from happening is the person doing it,” Sifuna added.

Mkangi also said Muturi’s allegations could help support the narrative that the President is aware of abductions of government critics, saying the buck stopped with the president to arrest the situation.

“But even if it is not security agencies conducting them, Kenyans want to know what the government is doing about it. They expect the abductions will be stopped and stern action taken against those responsible.

“When it comes to security, the government is responsible by omission or commission… and when it is about an issue as big as this, which is becoming an international matter, the responsibility goes to the highest office,” said the lawyer.