When President William Ruto addressed residents at Ol Kalou town in Nyandarua county on April 03, 2025 during his Mt Kenya Region Tour. [File, Standard] President William Ruto stood before a nation in pain. A nation mourning the lives of its children gunned down in cold blood, a nation clamoring not for charity but for dignity. And in that pivotal moment when leadership demanded restraint, compassion, and unity, the President chose threat and intimidation. He told the police to “just shoot on the leg.” A command so reckless, so dismissive of human life, that it will be remembered not as…
Author: By Justin Muturi
When the National Assembly rose from its seats last week, a rare scene unfolded: both sides of the aisle applauded a unanimous vote. But celebration quickly curdled into alarm. In a single afternoon, every MP endorsed a Constitutional Amendment Bill designed to resuscitate the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NGCDF). The very scheme the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional on August 8, 2022. That vote did not merely defy a judicial pronouncement; it defied the foundational architecture of the 2010 Constitution. The amendment now heads to the Senate. If the upper House values constitutional order, leadership integrity, and devolution, it must…
Who gave the police the responsibility to abandon the criminal procedure as we know it? Who authorised the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to substitute the law with fear, procedure with brute force, and the Constitution with terror? In a functioning democracy, law enforcement follows the law. In a failing one, it manufactures its own law. Kenya today stands dangerously close to the latter. It used to be that when the police suspected someone of a crime, they issued a summon. The individual was asked to report to the nearest police station to record a statement. That simple step, an…
Law Society of Kenya (LSK) president Faith Odhiambo addresses the media on 8th June 2025, outside Central police station in Nairobi. LSK condemn the death of Albert Ojwang at Central police station. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard] Albert Ojwang is not just another name. He was a young man. A Kenyan. A son. A citizen. A content creator. Someone with dreams, loved ones, a future. But now, he is dead—killed while in the custody of those meant to protect him. Ojwang was arrested by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Migori. He was hauled across the country to Nairobi,…
Albert Ojwang allegedly died at an isolation cell at Nairobi Central police. [Courtesy] Albert Ojwang is not just another name. He was a young man. A Kenyan. A son. A citizen. A content creator. Someone with dreams, loved ones, and a future. And now, he is dead, killed while in the custody of those meant to protect him. Ojwang was arrested by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Migori. He was hauled across the country to Nairobi, locked up at Central Police Station and by morning, he was dead. Just like that. And with the same chilling…
President Ruto with Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo at State house on January 3, 2024. [File Courtesy] When Kenya embraced multiparty democracy in the 1990s, it pledged a new allegiance—to constitutionalism, human rights and the rule of law. When we enacted the 2010 Constitution, we reinforced that promise, declaring in Article 2(5) and (6) that the general rules of international law and treaties Kenya has ratified form part of our law. This is not symbolic. It is binding. It means Kenya cannot be a haven for impunity, and it certainly cannot offer red-carpet treatment to alleged war criminals. Yet that is exactly what happened in February this year when…
President William Ruto with his Tanzanian counterpart Samia Suluhu during the inauguration of Namibia’s President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah at State House Windhoek in Namibia. [PCS] Tanzanian authorities last week arrested and tortured Kenyan and Ugandan human rights defenders for going to witness the treason trial of Chadema Party leader Tundu Antipas Lissu. Kenyans, except for regime enablers, have condemned Suluhu Hassan’s authoritarian tactics and demanded for fundamental change. In my interactions with colleagues as Speaker of the National Assembly for 10 years across Africa, it became clear that Africa’s march to democracy has been a mixed record but, particularly troubling in…