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The festive cheer of Christmas 2024 has been marred by a disturbing wave of youth abductions in various parts of Kenya, casting a shadow over the holiday season.

Reports of young Kenyans forcibly picked up from public places have sparked widespread fear and outrage, prompting urgent calls for action from both the public and authorities.

During the period, distraught family members of Bill Mwangi, Peter Muteti, Bernard Kavuli, and cartoonist Kibet Bull were frantically searching for their sons who disappeared on varying dates without a trace. These incidents have raised serious concerns about the safety and security of the youth in Kenya who have now turned to social media activism to critique the government.

Shockingly, the same government oversaw the killing in cold blood of 60 of their colleagues in June during the Gen Z protests that took various shapes and forms.

A rather uncaring government ignored their calls to drop new taxes contained in the Finance Bill 2024 that would have overburdened citizens who have all along endured the effects of high living costs.

Overcome by fear of being assassinated during public protests, the youth seeking to exercise their freedom of expression while checking on government excesses resorted to utilising social media platforms to call for accountability.

On the internet, the youth have been using their creativity to pass their message and call out bad governance but as usual the government is not ready to have that conversation with them.

The abductions and forced disappearances paint a vivid picture of a regime that has embarked on fist-and-iron rules with the resolve to disregard accountability and suppress any dissenting voices even when the country is seemingly headed in the wrong direction.

Surprisingly, police, who are supposed to offer security to all Kenyans per the Constitution, are now being linked to abductions.

The only action that police boss Douglas Kanja has done in light of the atrocities committed by his juniors is to issue statements to deny their involvement without explaining in breadth and length how they intend to safeguard the security of Kenyans regardless of their hostility or friendliness, if any, to the government.

The government should be very wary about the precedence it is setting as these abductions ensue because they will spoil the reputation of Kenyan police, especially now when they are undertaking an international crackdown on gangs in Haiti.