Political cartoons in Kenya have never been without risk. Cartoonists have faced expulsion, state-designed censorship, lawsuits from angry politicians unhappy with their portrayal, and even the occasional phone call threat. Yet, until this week, they have never had to endure arbitrary arrest.
Even during the worst days of Daniel arap Moi’s 24-year dictatorship, or “Nyayo Fault,” which swept the country from 1978 to 2002, cartoonists were not directly targeted by the state. Newspaper publishers saw their printing presses destroyed, and editors and writers—including satirists like Wahome Mutahi—were detained for long periods without trial. Yet cartoonists have escaped the worst of the regime’s excesses.
That changed with the kidnapping of Gideon Kibet, known as Kibet Paul, a young cartoonist who became famous online for his bold use of silhouettes to mock President William Ruto’s increasingly authoritarian administration, which had been falsified as its legitimacy was questioned by youth-led street protests across the country.
The regime responded with a brutal crackdown that left dozens dead and a campaign of kidnappings of prominent activists that continues to this day. According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, at least 82 people have been taken in the past seven months and about a third are still missing. Kibet and his brother Ronnie Kiplagat disappeared in the capital, Nairobi, on Christmas Eve after meeting with opposition lawmaker Okia Omtata.
That the pair were behind the disappearance was partly confirmed by reports that officers had stormed his home in Nakuru, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the capital, in a desperate attempt to arrest him there. The police have also been implicated in previous kidnappings, including that of veteran journalist Macharia Githu, who was snatched from the precincts of the police station where he had taken refuge.
By going after Kibet, Ruto’s regime has demonstrated its fragility. According to one theory, cartooning is dependent on the political system. Whereas in totalitarian regimes, the artist is forced to praise the regime and condemn its enemies, in democracies the cartoonist acts as a watchdog, keeping those in power honest and accountable, in authoritarian regimes some dissent is allowed, and when regimes become fragile, cartoonists expose their ruthless follies.
For six decades, Kenya has been an aspiring democracy, where people have had to constantly resist the authoritarian tendencies of their rulers. Ruto, who was elected by barely a third of the vote in 2022, was particularly insecure about his position, initially trying to build a place for himself on the international stage to cover up his lack of domestic legitimacy. The mid-year protests, which forced him to withdraw unpopular tax measures, reshuffle his cabinet, and launch a youth movement focused on his ouster, also heightened his authoritarian tendencies, which were fostered by none other than Moi himself.
Through his cartoons, Kibet Paul has mercilessly exposed Ruto’s ruthless folly, drawing the attention and ire of the regime, as well as the admiration of millions of Kenyans both online and offline. He now joins dozens of young people who have disappeared at the hands of Ruto’s regime, some of whom have reported being tortured and others killed. That the abductions are the work of state agents is not seriously disputed and has drawn condemnation from a large segment of Kenyan society as well as human rights groups.
In recent days, Ruto has pledged to end the abductions, which many Kenyans have interpreted as an admission of complicity. In his New Year’s message to the country, he acknowledged “excessive and extrajudicial actions by members of the security services,” but seemed to suggest that the real problem was not police misconduct, but citizens who promote “extremism, individualism, violence, and selfish interpretations of rights and freedoms.”
Ruto, who has in the past shown disdain for history teaching in Kenyan schools, arguing that Kenyans need to focus on more “marketable” subjects, would benefit greatly from reading about Kenya’s recent past. Over the past seven decades, Kenya’s rulers—from British colonialists to his presidential predecessors, including his fellow ICC indictee, Uhuru Kenyatta—have learned the same painful lesson: lack of legitimacy is paramount. Their regimes are deadly and their brutality will not save them.
Ruto is the weakest of all and he knows it. Barely halfway through his term, he is already plotting to change the rules of the handover of power to give himself greater control over the process, even though the next election is more than two and a half years away. As he has floundered, he has made several major cabinet reshuffles, and even engineered the impeachment, sacking and replacement of his deputy. Having successfully run a populist campaign for the presidency against the “dynasties” – the political families that have dominated Kenyan politics since independence – he has had to swallow his words and court their support.
But it is the same weakness, insecurity, fear and desperation that makes Ruto so dangerous. It is what makes him target young people whose only crime is demanding the better life he promised them. It is what makes his regime shudder with mockery and see online cartoons as an existential threat. It is what makes him a threat to the nation and its constitutional order – a threat that all Kenyans must live by.
