The chilling sound of three vehicles screeching to a halt was the last thing Twaha Mwaipaya’s friends heard before the Tanzanian opposition activist vanished into the Nairobi afternoon. More than two days have passed since the October 25 abduction in Kamulu, Machakos County, and the silence from Kenyan authorities is becoming as deafening as the act itself.

For a nation that has long styled itself as a sanctuary for those fleeing persecution in the region, the disappearance of Mwaipaya, a former youth leader of Tanzania’s opposition CHADEMA party, is not an isolated incident. It is the latest and most glaring symptom of a terminal illness eating away at Kenya’s constitutional fabric.