Gachagua ouster bid hurts Ruto and Kenyans feel cheated by KK

 

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua makes his address during Golden Jubilee celebrations of ACK Thika Memorial Church School in Gatanga Sub-County, Murang'a County, on August 2, 2024. [DPCS]

However, it ends, the Rigathi Gachagua impeachment effort is set to boomerang on President William Ruto. Ruto has boxed himself in a political cul-de-sac.

If his deputy falls, a wasteful three-year titanic power struggle for the Mt Kenya region will kick in. Public participation in the impeachment saga suggests that Ruto has lost the Mountain. His local political buddies look set to fall with him. The feeling of betrayal is pulsating. Did Team Ruto underrate the ethnic sentiment and Riggy G’s support in the region?  

Beyond that, Ruto’s dreams of a second term hang in the balance. With the Mountain gone, he fetches far, to hope that Luo and Luhya's votes, which he seems to be courting, could replace the Mountain. They don’t vote. Second, they are not overly fond of Kenya Kwanza.  Suppose Gachagua doesn’t go? The impeachment effort would become a vote of no confidence in President Ruto. In the circumstances, the honourable thing would be for Ruto to resign. But, of course, he would not. Did Ruto weigh out these pyrrhic possibilities? Is he a beneficiary of poor wisdom?

It was impolitic to sponsor an impeachment motion against his deputy in the middle of a slate of heavy challenges for the citizens, to say nothing of the limping integrity of his government. An unpopular government does not sponsor a plebiscite. President Ruto does not seem to know that his leadership is at its lowest fortune. The person in the street is unhappy. He feels cheated by leadership that is all promises, showmanship, and nothing beyond. He’s witness to a dramatic myriad of launches and relaunches of projects, with nothing tangible. None of Kenya Kwanza’s splendid electoral promises has borne fruit. Agriculture is in a mess, following fake fertiliser sales this year. The full impact will be felt next year.

Affordable housing remains an obscure scheme, with the smell of a scam. The health sector is in a mess. The SME Hustler Fund is proving to be a cesspit, into which billions have been sunk. The digital superhighway and digital economy is a story in the distant past. Education is troubled. The job market is dead. Insecurity stalks people everywhere, sometimes with the State as the agent of abductions, disappearances and worse.  

Crowning all these is a galore of corrupt scandals. Almost every week, Kenyans stumble into a new high-profile scam, a collusion of the Executive with foreign buccaneers. The Adani Affair, in various sectors, is only the latest in a long catalogue of scandalous new money. In the ordinary spaces in which I mingle with fellow ordinary Kenyans, the discourse is one of thoroughbred unhappiness. Kenyans speak of an insensitive predatory, extractive and acquisitive self-serving regime. They see it in the imagery of a marauder that eats up its prey without killing it first. It does not help matters at all that a detachment from ODM has joined them. It is shocking to see ODM robustly apologising for Kenya Kwanza’s sins. ODM loudmouths cast themselves as the vultures that scavenge on what the hyenas have left.  

Then comes the ugly imbroglio between the President and his deputy. It culminates in an impeachment motion against the DP, with ODM as the supporting cast. The charge sheet could fit anybody, perhaps even everybody in the Executive. You could replace the name Gachagua with any other, and it would hold. Tribalism? Have you seen the appointment announcements that the Head of Public Service, Felix Koskei, signs off every so often? Nothing could be more tribal. And yes, the Kenya Kwanza Government was always about tribal shares. Our own greater Emanyulia was promised 30 per cent of government, in signed documents.  

Contradicting collective government policy? The Ruto Cabinet does this all the time. One Minister says one thing, and another one says something else. Belittling the Judiciary? President Ruto leads. Getting rich quickly? Everyone in the Executive is a sudden billionaire. They have possibly all committed economic crimes. In a word, they are all guilty of everything they accuse Riggy G of. Why is a pack of grave-robbing hyenas, combined with a wake of vultures to impeach one of their own? Kenyans are saying the whole lot should go.  

Gachagua stands for nothing remarkable. Who does this Executive? Our protection fees collectors in Parliament have no moral high ground from which they could impeach anyone. Impeachers should come with clean hands. Kenya needs restoration to factory settings. The Gen-Zs were on the right path. Maybe they will return. 

Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke