CS Muturi breached President Ruto’s trust with 'careless' statement - Charles Owino says

Former police spokesman Charles Owino has rubbished Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi's remarks that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) abducted his son.

Speaking on Citizen TV’s JKlive Show on Wednesday night, Owino termed the former Attorney Generals statement on his son's alleged abduction as "careless", accusing him of breaching the President's trust.

Owino cited the leadership calibre of Muturi as a CS and immediate former Attorney General who was a member of the National Security Council saying that he ought to have known better in disclosing such sensitive intel to the public.

The former police spokesperson faulted Muturi for publicly making the statement arguing that even if the damning revelation was anything to go by, the former AG should have exercised restraint and respected President William Ruto’s action of ensuring the release of his son.

“It is a careless statement from a minister… he has breached the trust of the President. We can have our differences but we must be very careful on how we release these matters,” said Owino.

The former police boss who remained coy about the ongoing abductions insisting that they should be treated as mere 'allegations’ pointed out that leaders should be careful with their public sentiments, or risk dividing the nation.

He averred that as a cabinet secretary, one is obligated to agree to the decisions made in the Executive arm or tender their resignations.

“We may rush to say certain things that can put the country in a worse situation than we are in and we have heard politicians make very crazy statements on this. Let us not politicise…NIS is the secret service of this country; it collects intelligence and manages counterintelligence in this country, and we must be very careful,” he stated.

“NIS reports to the National Security Council and the President. It also shares its intelligence reports with DCI and NPS. Sometimes in the Cabinet, you can disagree to agree and what happens is that when you leave the Cabinet meetings and a decision is made, you have only two alternatives; to go by the decision or if not, to resign.”

Director of Amnesty International-Kenya Irungu Houghton who was also on the platform strongly disagreed with Owino for terming CS Muturi's remarks as careless, saying the latter was an authoritative source for his statement to be downplayed.

"I don’t think you can dismiss JB Muturi’s statement as an allegation because he is a credible authoritative person of responsibility in the government of Kenya. He is not just a random individual. I believe one of the things that needs to happen next is for the director general to produce his statement to clarify to the nation what actually happened. If that is not possible, then the other people who were named there including the head of state need to also explain whether that phone call took place or not," said Irungu.