Arrest Kiprotich's kidnappers to restore public trust

Photo Courtesy: Citizen Television

Overshadowed by the Presidential Katiba Day event, businesses, civic and government agencies held the first of eight roundtables ahead of Kenya's inaugural Global Trust Summit in October. With public trust in government at an all-time low, what can be done to rebuild it across all public institutions?

The English word trust comes from the Old Norse traust. It meant not only confidence but also protection and support. Around 500 AD, trust was essential to Viking society. With no internet or formal police service and limited government enforcement, people relied on loyalty, reputation, and community. Kings trusted nobles, traders did business without written agreements, and families depended on their neighbours for protection.

Pre-colonial African societies were also sustained by this invisible foundation. Along the trans-Saharan trade routes, North African salt traders and West African gold miners exchanged goods without laws, enforcement mechanisms and or even meeting each other. If the Oyo Empire Council (today Nigeria and Benin) lost trust in their King, they simply presented them an empty calabash, a sign for them to pack up and go. It was the interdependence concept of “Ubuntu” (I am because you are) that anchored the stability and workability of Southern African communities.

Trust grounded medieval Europe and pre-colonial African societies because there were consequences for breaking it. You could be excluded from trade networks, removed from power and disgraced within kinship and community structures. That, rebuilding public trust has resurfaced as an existential threat for this national administration 1,500 years later, must force us to pause and rethink.

Kenya has a progressive constitution that enshrines a bill of rights, balances power across an executive, legislative, judiciary and independent agencies. and requires citizens to be involved in governance. We have been a sovereign independent state for 63 years and a digital economy for seven. Yet, recent Edelman Trust, Afrobarometer and OECD surveys confirm what we see on our streets and digital spaces every day, the trust of the average Kenyan in the government has plummeted.

Last year, Edelman Trust Institute found only two in five Kenyans trust the government. Most believe political leaders deliberately mislead the public. Kenyans have told Afrobarometer that their trust in the Presidency has fallen by 27 percentage points over the past decade. Trust in the ruling coalition has halved and now trails public trust in the opposition. Worryingly for next year, only 36 per cent of the public trust the IEBC. How did we get here?

Three issues determine whether the current roundtables and next month’s Trust Summit will be transformative or another weak attempt at public image management. Announced during one of the most brutal seasons of state violence against citizens in 2024, the Summit must see arrests for the abductions, killings and intimidation of state critics before it starts. Deploying the Operations Support Unit against senior editor Robert Kiprotich this week was an act of political self-sabotage. Trust and terror cannot coexist. Rather than the endless international conferencing with foreign dignitaries, could the Administration invite an independent, credible international investigation into all the abductions and protest-related deaths?

Drawing from late Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat, this Administration needs to talk with its strongest critics and under-represented voices. If next month’s summit attendees are handpicked rather than actual protest leaders, opposition figures, and independent journalists, it will not break through to those it needs to.

As the OECD study found, not even improving service delivery compensates for weakened parliamentary oversight, underfunded constitutional commissions, and the failure to prosecute grand economic crimes. The real test of the Summit is whether it restores public faith in a constitutional architecture that has been captured, defunded and undermined in the last four years. What is needed now is bold institutional change, not a Global Trust Council.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was credible because it was truly independent, enabled public testimony and went after sacred cows. Ireland's Citizens' Assembly rebuilt trust by using randomly selected citizens and holding the government accountable to act on their recommendations. Despite its broader authoritarian context, Rwanda's annual Umushyikirano national dialogue requires ministers to answer citizen questions live on television.

Another performative conference wastes precious donor resources. It also emboldens more State Officers to feel untouchable, taxpayers to evade taxes, employees to defraud their employers and voters to choose the streets over polling booths to express themselves. As trust drains from public institutions, it accelerates disinformation, polarization, and less support for public services.

Like the renewal of vows in an abusive marriage, declarations alone will not restore trust. As ancient societies understood, trust is not just confidence, but the presence of protection and support for all. Prosecuting those responsible for Kiprotich’s abduction would do so much more to restore trust than another five star Summit.

This opinion was also published in the Saturday Standard, 5 September 2026.