The reported abduction of Standard Group Associate Editor Alex Kiprotich raises a question that goes beyond the safety of a journalist: why Alex Kiprotich?
The diminutive and soft-spoken Kiprotich’s position at The Standard is important, but his significance extends well beyond the newsroom. For many years, he has occupied a curious space where journalism, the Moi family and political power intersect.
Kiprotich’s influence has never been entirely about his bylines. His career within The Standard Group has been closely intertwined with the Moi family, giving him a level of access and institutional memory that few ordinary newsroom editors possess. That background becomes particularly difficult to ignore when an editor with such connections is allegedly targeted twice within a relatively short period.
In 2016, Kiprotich was appointed as Lee Njiru’s deputy in the office of retired President Daniel arap Moi and was being prepared to take over from the veteran press secretary. The succession, however, did not proceed as a straightforward replacement. Moi declined to let go of Njiru, whom he continued to regard as a trusted aide.
The episode was therefore about more than filling a communications position. It was about access to one of Kenya’s most politically influential retired presidents and proximity to his relationships, information and extensive political network. Kiprotich was being positioned within a circle where information and political access mattered as much as formal titles. His association with the Moi family did not end with Daniel Moi.
He later served as an aide to Gideon Moi, then KANU chairman and Baringo Senator and now the owner of The Standard Group, further placing him within a political network that remains an important part of Kenya’s political establishment.
That history matters because it makes Kiprotich different from an ordinary newspaper editor whose principal preoccupation is gathering, processing and publishing news. His professional life has crossed paths with some of the country’s most powerful political actors, both inside and outside the newsroom.
It is therefore notable, though not yet conclusively explained, that a journalist with such a background should become the subject of two alleged attempts to seize him within a matter of months. His political and professional history does not by itself establish the motive, but it makes the question of motive considerably more important.
The circumstances surrounding his disappearance -and later discovery at Masinga Dam in Machakos – are equally difficult to ignore. Standard Group says Kiprotich was abducted shortly before 9.20pm on 1st September along the Gilgil-Nakuru road. This followed an earlier incident on 27th June, when four armed men in a Toyota Probox allegedly tried to seize him in Nakuru. Kiprotich reportedly locked himself inside his vehicle and drove away.
Standard Group subsequently said its investigations traced the vehicle to the National Police Service’s Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau, although no one had been held accountable. The June incident also acquired a political dimension because it came only days after President William Ruto had publicly attacked The Standard over its coverage and directly addressed Gideon Moi.
Ruto accused the media group of hostile and propagandistic headlines targeting his administration, while the newspaper defended its editorial independence. The timing did not prove a connection between the President’s criticism and the alleged attack, but it created a political context that cannot simply be wished away.
Then came the 1st September incident.
The response from Standard Group chief executive Chaacha Mwita was unusually forceful. The company demanded Kiprotich’s immediate, safe and unconditional release, called for independent investigations into both incidents and said it believed the latest episode could be linked to elements within the State seeking to intimidate the media house into silence. It went further, holding the State responsible for Kiprotich’s safety and life while he remained missing.
The speed and intensity of that response underline how seriously the company views the matter. It also makes it harder to dismiss the two incidents as unrelated criminal encounters without first answering the obvious questions. Who targeted Kiprotich in June, who took him on 1st September , whether the two incidents are connected and, most importantly, why him?
There is another reason the question deserves attention. Kiprotich is not simply an editor working for a newspaper that has found itself increasingly at odds with the Ruto administration. He is an editor whose professional history connects him to the Moi political establishment, including Gideon Moi, while working for a media organisation owned by that same political family.
These three worlds — the Standard newsroom, the Moi political network and the increasingly tense relationship between the media group and the current administration — now meet in one unexplained disappearance. It would be premature to say that the abduction was politically ordered. But it would be equally premature to treat Kiprotich’s selection as an entirely random event without investigating the wider circumstances surrounding him.
His history gives investigators a much wider field to examine than an ordinary kidnapping would. It also gives the public a legitimate reason to ask whether there is more to this case than the disappearance of a journalist. The priority now should be to establish who targeted him in June, who took him on 1st September, whether the two incidents are connected and, crucially, why he was selected.
The answer to that last question may reveal that this is not simply a story about a missing editor, but about the continuing intersection of journalism, political influence and power in Kenya.
