Kenyan President William Ruto has promised to stop abductions of government critics, in an apparent change of stance for a leader who has previously called the wave of disappearances “fake news.”
Ruto, his government officials and police have maintained for months that there were no abductions. Ruto has also demanded names of the missing from families, and told parliament that the reports were fabricated to tarnish his government’s name. At least 82 government critics have allegedly gone missing after a youth-led protest movement erupted in June against a controversial finance bill, though some have resurfaced.
Ruto’s remarks on Saturday did not acknowledge government culpability for those missing, however. The Kenyan leader also said that parents should better “take care” of their children.
“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,” Ruto said at a stadium in Homa Bay, in the west of the country.
Among the disappeared are two young men who shared AI-generated images of Ruto in a casket that some considered offensive and a popular cartoonist whose images of the president went viral. Despite Ruto’s speech, a state-funded human rights body says 29 people remain unaccounted for, including six people who disappeared days before Christmas.
Human rights defenders allege that all of the missing activists and critics are believed to have been tracked down by government intelligence who tapped into phone signals. The protests were widely mobilized online, before they spread onto the streets.
Human rights activist Bob Njagi, who said he was abducted this summer, reacted to Ruto’s comment: “It was an admission that they’re happening under their watch, if not by them.”
Njagi leads the Free Kenya Movement, which he described as a consortium of organizations united in pursuit of change for the country. He was one of the most prominent figures behind the protests against Ruto’s government before he disappeared.
Njagi said that he was driven to an undisclosed location, stripped naked and chained to the floor for the first two days of his detention. He said that Kenyan security officers held him incommunicado, handcuffed and blindfolded in solitary confinement for 30 more days but was released after a judge threatened to jail the police chief for not revealing his whereabouts.
“They’re Kenyan security officers who took us because they told me we had become a threat to the state. These men would just give us one meal a day – ugali (cornmeal) and cabbage or beans,” he said.
Until President Ruto’s comments, the Kenyan government has always denied that anyone was missing. “Social media has been used to perpetuate the narrative that certain lawful arrests were abductions when, in fact, those arrested were either awaiting trial or have been released after necessary legal procedures,” Chief Minister Musalia Mudavadi said last week.
Njagi said that he was never formally questioned, “but the guys who brought us food would ask random questions, like, ‘who’s been funding you?’ and who our associates were.”
The detention was excruciating for many reasons, he said, including that he couldn’t communicate with his family. Njagi was expecting a daughter. She was born nine days before he was released.
Njagi is now reunited with his now three-month-old daughter. But others like Gideon Kibet, a 24-year-old college student who drew the viral cartoon of Ruto, are still missing.
Kibet disappeared after meeting opposition senator Okiya Omtatah on Christmas Eve.
Kibet’s younger brother Ronny Kiplangat, who is also still missing, had disappeared a few days earlier. The brothers’ family fears that security forces used Kiplangat as bait to lure Kibet – who was studying outside the capital – to Nairobi.
Omtatah said that both Njagi and Kibet were abducted by security forces after leaving his office.
“(Kibet) boarded a matatu after my driver dropped him off in the city center. As they have done with others, they must have blocked the matatu and snatched him from it,” he said.
“If you look at the attitude of the police, they know what is happening. The state is simply allowing it or acquiescing to it,” Omtatah said.
Like many young Kenyans, Kibet was once a fervent Ruto supporter. But he turned into a sharp critic as the euphoria that propelled Ruto to power has turned into disappointment with his government over corruption, unemployment, and an anemic economy.
Kibet is among many youth that voted for Ruto’s “hustler-in-chief” promise of a better future, but have soured on his government just two years in.
Twenty-two-year-old Peter Muteti Njeru was abducted from a suburb outside Nairobi last week.
Njeru had posted an AI-generated image of Ruto in a casket on social media, but deleted it after some commenters said it could amount to treason under Kenyan law.
CCTV footage from a shop in Njeru’s apartment building showed two men ambushing him before dragging him into a car that speeds off.
“Where do you draw the line between power and dictatorship?,” Njeru’s cousin Ansity Kendi Christine said in reference to the abduction.
Christine, who says their whole family voted for Ruto, added: “It’s a shame I will carry for the rest of my life.”
Kenya’s recently impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has claimed that a rogue unit of security officers outside of the command of the police was carrying out abductions and killings in the country. Some youth who went out to protest and disappeared were later found dead.
“Your guess is as good as mine as to who is the commander of that unit,” he told reporters, demanding that it be dismantled.
Gachagua hinted that his former boss and running mate Ruto was ultimately responsible after Kenya’s police chief denied involvement in the disappearances.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the National Police Service is not involved in any abduction, and there is no police station in the country that is holding the reported abductees,” Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja said in a statement last week.
Omtatah has called on Kanja and Kenya’s chief detective to “come clean” on the abductions or quit.
Meanwhile, Ruto’s promise to stop the abductions can’t come soon enough for the families of the missing.
Retired civil servant Gerald Mwangi, whose son has been missing since Saturday, is hoping Ruto will keep his word.
Billy Mwangi, 24, disappeared from his barbershop’s doorstep the day after a now suspended X account believed to belong to him, posted a doctored photo showing Ruto’s head emerging from a casket.
Mwangi’s father hopes his son will be released after Ruto’s announcement. In the meantime, he says, he is continuing what he calls a “layman’s investigation” into his son’s disappearance.
Civil society groups and professional bodies have condemned the abductions, calling them enforced disappearances with the regional cartoonists society decrying a return to the “dark days of censorship, detention without trial, torture and murder of voices critical of the government.”
And, while a civilian-led police oversight body is investigating, many Kenyans have little faith in their independence.
“We believe in God and I believe that my son is going to be released,” Mwangi said.