02/04/2025
Statement by Justin Muturi
I DID NOT ABSCOND, RUTO FIRED ME OVER MY STAND ON EXTRA JUDICIAL KILLINGS
The President in a televised interview on the night of 31st March 2025 at Sagana State lodge stated that I was relieved of my duties for failing to attend cabinet meetings. I would wish to respond as follows:
It will be recalled that on the 12th of January this year I issued a press statement in which I condemned the rampant abductions and extra judicial killings that had been going in the county. In that statement I called upon government to rise to the occasion and release all those who were held in captivity and bring to book the perpetrators. Subsequent to this I was challenged by the DCI to go and record a statement with the DCIO Killimani because the matter was allegedly under active investigation.
On the 14th January 2025 I recorded a comprehensive statement at the DCIO Killimani. In that statement I raised many fundamental issues as to how my son had been abducted and later released at the intervention of the President. This elicited many calls for my resignation or sacking including from several cabinet members and leaders of both Houses of Parliament.
There have been three cabinet meetings this year, to date, the first being on 21st of January at Kakamega State Lodge. When I received the invitation and the agenda for the cabinet meeting I realized that there was no agenda touching on abductions and extra judicial killings, yet even the President had on 27th December 2025 at a public rally in Homa Bay committed to ending abductions. I, therefore, felt in good conscience that it would not be fitting for me to attend a cabinet meeting that did not address such a monumental issue that goes to the core of our constitutional basis and the rule of law. In the circumstances, I decided to write to the President through the Secretary to the Cabinet, drawing his attention to these issues and requesting him to excuse my non-attendance for those reasons. The information I have from the Secretary to the Cabinet is that she delivered my letter dated 20th January 2025 to him.
The next Cabinet meeting was a special one called on 11th February, 2025 and I received both the invitation and agenda of the meeting. Like in the first instance, I went through the agenda and found that the issues of abductions and extra judicial killings were not listed. I wrote to the President directly, this time, drawing his attention to my earlier letter of 20th January, 2025, and stated that I found it untenable for the highest decision making body of the state to continue sweeping the matter of abductions and extra judicial killings under the carpet. I stated that I would not attend any other cabinet meetings until the issues of abductions and extra judicial killings were listed as an agenda for discussion, debate and resolution on the way forward.
The third cabinet meeting took place on the 11th of March at State House Nairobi and like the other two I had been invited and sent the agenda for the day. The item was still not on the agenda. I wrote directly to the President on the 10th March 2025 again referring to the previous two letters and reiterating my position and I did beseech the President to direct that the vexing issue of abduction and extra judicial killings in our country be prioritized and placed on the agenda for future cabinet meetings.
To date the President has never responded to any of my letters, clearly thereby indicating that the matter of abduction and extra judicial killings is not worthy of his attention or that of the cabinet. After each cabinet meeting I regularly received, without failure, the dispatch from cabinet indicating all the matters that had been discussed and the decisions thereof but the matter of abductions and extra judicial killings has never been discussed. I was, therefore, surprised to hear the President on live television stating that the issue has been discussed in cabinet and has been resolved.
Since my reasons for not attending cabinet are clearly stated, the inference one draws from my sacking is that raising the issue of abductions and extra judicial killings must have terribly annoyed the President. It is no wonder that those closest to the President have variously been, in different fora, calling for my resignation and or sacking. From what I have stated above it is clear that what the President has said about my not attending cabinet meetings is untrue, perhaps confirming what we have been seeing on social media where people are overwhelmingly doubting what he says.
It was shocking to hear the President in the same televised interview saying that upon assuming office he disbanded a police squad which, in his own words, had been responsible for the abductions and killings of people and dumping their bodies in river Yala and Athi river. The question we are asking is, if the President knew of the existence of such a squad that committed such heinous crimes, shouldn’t the members of such a squad face the full weight of the law for the crimes they have committed? If only to give the relatives of the deceased some measure of justice for the lives wrongly and wantonly taken away. Why has the President not given the names of those killers that were part of that squad so that they can be prosecuted for the crimes they have committed.
The lingering concern of many Kenyans is, how sure are we that since abductions and extra judicial killings have continued, this is not a replication of the evil trend where another squad has been set up? When my son was abducted all efforts to trace him and get him released from the various security agencies in the country proved futile until when I went to the President and he called the Director General of National Intelligence Service and my son was promptly released. It is not rocket science to know that my son and many other young Kenyans were in the custody of the Director General of NIS with the knowledge of the President. It is evident that to date they have not denied any content of my statement.
There is no doubt that I was sacked because of my stand on the abductions and extra judicial killings and not because of the so-called absconding of cabinet meetings. If their intention is to silence me, they have dialed the wrong number for I will never tire of fighting for the rights of the People of Kenya.
