Public Service and Human Capital Development Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi addressing journalists at Serena Hotel, Nairobi, on January 12, 2025.
It was refreshing to hear Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi break rank with colleagues and call out the government over the worrying trend of abductions and enforced disappearances.
Mr Muturi’s words were in sharp contrast to the hysterical verbiage coming from the usual army of programmed praise singers and podium dancers.
If I was allowed to offer a word of advice to President William Ruto, I would tell him to listen to sober and wise counsel from those in his entourage brave enough to tell the king when he is naked. President Ruto’s greatest weakness is that he listens only to himself, and to those rabid vultures of reaction who say only what they think he will want to hear.
President Ruto must understand that the criminal and extra-judicial actions undertaken on his behalf by State security agencies in response to critics are hurting him terribly.
It may be true that the young people, who launched the Gen Z protests, have crossed the line with caricatures of “Kasongo”, the President, lying in a coffin. However, the response—presumably directed from State House—has crossed the line 10 times over.
A country that aspires to be a beacon of democracy, human rights and political stability cannot allow itself to descend to depths where the government resorts to brazen abuse of power to shield itself from legitimate scrutiny.
Not criminal offences
First of all, mocking, insulting and caricaturing the Head of State are not criminal offences in Kenya. And if cartoons and memes depicting President Ruto in unfavourable light were criminal, the authors should be subjected to due process and produced in court, not abducted by masked criminals and kept in illegal confinement.
It is because President Ruto’s men have perused the Penal Code and cannot find any known offence that they have resorted to abductions carried out by what can only be described as private armies.
After the initial denials, the President—as usual echoed by his megaphones starting with Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, new Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen and the usual cacophony of sabre-rattling background choirs—is now implicitly admitting the excess occurring under his watch. The official message is that abductions will not end unless the young social media activists cease criticism and insults.
While he may deploy political mouthpieces like Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi and National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungw’a to take on his critics with juvenile tantrums, the President must understand that eventually the buck stops with him.
One day when those responsible for grave human rights abuses are called to account, it is he who will have to bear the burden of command responsibility. Prof Kindiki, who is a previous Interior CS, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi who acted for a time in the docket, Mr Murkomen and the actual perpetrators led by National Intelligence Service Director Noordin Haji, Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Mohammed Amin, Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja and his predecessor Japhet Koome, should also know that when the time comes, they too will not be spared, whether the matter is adjudicated before local or international courts.
Finally, President Ruto is making a big mistake by tribalising the counter-offensive against his critics. One can be sure as night follows day that the usual rabble of foul-mouthed politicians and paid State House bloggers will be deployed to hit out at Mr Muturi for singing out of tune, and their only weapon will be that he is “Murima”—a person from the Mt Kenya region.
Knee-jerk response
Indeed, it has become the knee-jerk response from the Kenya Kwanza chorus that anyone who calls the government to account must be from the disaffected community of impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Even simple questions about the universal health coverage or the state of roads are met with scripted shouts of “Murima!”, but with absolutely no evidence that those asking for answers are from the Central region.
It is ironical that President Ruto is trying to win back the mountain by reaching out to Mr Kenyatta and appointing hand-picked individuals from the community to Cabinet and other senior positions; but at the same time driving a very obvious scheme to politically isolate, ostracise and marginalise the region—the 41 versus one strategy he has put into play.
Deploying Maina Njenga, leader of the banned Mungiki criminal gang, to lead his fightback in the region is also a grave mistake that the President will come to regret. That is why he needs more people like Mr Muturi in his inner sanctum.
[email protected]; @MachariaGaitho
