The 2025/26 Supplementary Budget went public this week. A quick read suggests that while the Government of Kenya does not lack money, it does lack consequences for intentionally deepening debt and impunity in our name. 

Does the midnight detention, interrogation, and dawn deportation of a senior staff member from one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations signal an early tactic in the Kenyan government’s playbook for the 2027 General Elections?

For Immediate Release

Hon. Hanna Cheptumo,

Workplace sexual harassment is an abuse of power that violates bodily autonomy, dignity, and equality. Across sectors, young professionals, junior staff, interns, and those employed within the informal sector endure workplace sexual harassment in silence. Many never report, and those who do find their complaints are processed as human resources issues rather than criminal matters. This institutional separation between corporate discipline and criminal accountability is a core gap that must be addressed. 

Let’s be honest. 

Every day in Kenya, children miss school, parents lose jobs, and older persons remain confined to their homes, not because they lack strength or determination, but because they lack something as basic as a prosthetic limb, a wheelchair, a hearing aid, or crutches.

East Africa is experiencing a profound digital shift. Governments are digitising services, innovators are deploying new tools, and citizens generate unprecedented volumes of data every day. Yet the same systems that promise inclusion and efficiency also raise new risks — shrinking civic space, expanding surveillance, algorithmic bias, and fragmented regulatory frameworks.

Nairobi, 23 February 2026: The Law Society of Kenya and Amnesty International Kenya commend the swift, coordinated action taken yesterday, Sunday 22 February, by officers from the Lukenya and Kyumbi Police Posts, DCI Kyumbi, and other national and county security and government agencies. The action led to the rescue of Tanzanian human rights defender Mshabaha Mshabaha Hamza and the arrest of three suspects involved in what appears to have been a violent, premeditated abduction and forceful rendition to Tanzania.

After seven months of silence since his July 2025 abduction, political activist Mwabili Mwagodi returned to the headlines this week. His court arraignment, followed two days later by the full acquittal of university student David Oaga Mokaya, shines a stronger spotlight on the misuse of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act and of the international Interpol Red Notice system to stifle political expression.

This column is more personal than usual. This week’s Commission on Administrative Justice (Ombudsman) ruling in the case of Coldstone Investment Ltd. Vs. Khaleej Towers Ltd. created a buzz in my home and several neighbourhoods negatively impacted by building and planning violations. 

I recently visited an Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) county and spoke with a teacher from a day secondary school. What I experienced will forever be ingrained in my memory. I wondered how and why the only secondary school in a sub-county would have a dismal performance with a mean score below 3 in the national examinations, while similar day schools performed well in the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.