IPOA Says it Lacks Capacity to Investigate Abductions

The Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) chairperson Issack Hassan has revealed why the authority is incapable of probing abductions.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Hassan said that the primary goal for IPOA was to oversight police conduct and since the National Police Service had denied involvement in the abductions, they would not be able to launch a probe.

“We came into office in December when there were a lot of reported abductions and forced disappearances. But the IG came about and said they are not our officers,”  he relayed.

“IPOA is an Act of government and we investigate misconduct by police officers. So wherein you have got people with hoods and cars with fake number plates who are abducting people, and do not take them to a police station but to a different place, I think these are issues that even the police must investigate.”

He further stated that preliminary investigations to determine whether police officers were involved proved the contrary after IPOA officials were sent to Nakuru, Embu, and Nairobi where recently abducted youth were recovered.

In his address, Hassan added that the low number of staff in the authority hindered comprehensive investigations into such issues.

He relayed that although 1,300 staff had been approved to work in the authority, only 284 staff were assigned, with only 77 of those being investigators.

This was in stark contrast to the over 120,000 officials they were supposed to oversee. He explained that this disparity in numbers had led to IPOA officers being overworked and suffering from burnout.

“We want an investigating staff of 600, but we have only 77, so you can see the challenge. The ones we have are already overworked and burned out,” he stated.

“We are going back to parliament to meet with the committee on administrative justice and national security to get them to give us more funding so we can hire more staff.”

The other challenge he mentioned was the ‘blue code of silence,’ which he described as the reluctance of police officers to cooperate and expose wrongdoing among their colleagues when an investigation is launched.

This comes amid a public uproar following months of unexplained disappearances that are suspected to have been carried out by police officers.

Although some of the abducted youths were released after weeks in captivity, details of their ordeals remain scant. Currently, several others are still missing, including the Mlolongo four, who were reportedly abducted in late December 2024.

Efforts by the High Court to compel the Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) boss Amin Mohammed to reveal the whereabouts of the four have bore no fruit as they have repeatedly skipped court summons.