Deputy President, Prof. Kithure Kindiki has spoken out on the rampant abduction and femicide cases that have rocked the country in the recent past.

Prof. Kindiki spoke during a press address on Thursday evening where he formally made his exit speech as Interior CS, and his maiden address as the country’s third Deputy President.

The DP was responding to a question posed by a journalist on his legacy at the Interior ministry, which has been plagued by multiple femicide and abduction cases towards the tail end.

Prof. Kindiki, while acknowledging the incidents, said he had just led the Interior ministry in coming up with a framework to handle them and bring the criminals to book when he was plucked by President William Ruto to rise to the position of his deputy.

He hence stated that the job now squarely rests on the shoulders of his successor in the ministry, Musalia Mudavadi, who presently holds the position of Interior CS in acting capacity.

“As I exit that office, I am exiting at a time when there are reports of cases of mysterious disappearances, abductions and femicide. I have handed over the responsibility of cracking down on those emerging reports of crime [to my successor] and I wish him well, and I know he will succeed the same way in the past I have been able to handle those other national security challenges,” said the DP.

“These are challenges that we’ve witnessed in the last few months, and already we had gotten to a place where we had come up with a strategy of cracking down on these criminal behavior. The same way we succeeded even with the Nairobi urban crime, which was quite a spiral at the time we took over and which today is manageable.”

Prof. Kindiki added: “These are developments over the last few weeks, maybe a couple of months, we had laid the ground on how to deal with cracking down on criminals who are in that space of femicide and abducting people…and also a framework for accountability of any rogue officer(s) involved. Therefore that should be the task of the next minister going forward.”

The DP went ahead to absolve himself from blame, saying he has over the past two years of his tenure in the Interior ministry endeavored to secure the country to the best of his capacity.

“I have demonstrated how for two years, every day of my life, I have struggled to secure the country from crime and people who would’ve caused us harm,” he said.

“I have no doubt I have done my best every day of my life. And there’s no day I have slept without asking myself what I have done to make our country safer.”