Gachagua: Master of his own folly or unfortunate circumstances victim?

For months, the push to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was an abstract idea — until it was not.

Hints were dropped. Accusations were hurled, but the defining moment came on June 26, a day after Gen Z protesters — whose agitation was marred by what the government called spoilers — stormed Parliament Buildings and burnt a part of it, a first in the nation’s 61 years of self-rule.

That day, the Deputy President, also known as Riggy G, technically ended his career of his own volition. Since then, he, whether knowingly or not, helped his detractors with his loose talks, turning the wish of President William Ruto’s most loyal politicians into a reality.  

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The Deputy President’s framing of the June 25 events —which Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki last month called a coup attempt — was shocking. At that time, the government badly needed not only the support of its members but the wider public. 

A visibly angry Ruto told the nation in a televised speech that “Kenya experienced an attack on its democracy, rule of law and integrity of its constitutional institutions.” He issued a warning to the “planners, financiers, orchestrators and abettors of violence and anarchy.”

“There was a systematic plan to burn Parliament, to burn the Supreme Court and maybe the whole of the government square and then go to State House,” said the then-Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale. 

To Ruto supporters, the DP’s statement was a significant tell that told against any pretence of neutrality on the part of the second-in-command, who came off as an opportunist at a time of national crisis.

To others, the Deputy President was just asking probing questions that President Ruto’s government tried to sweep under the rug.

Either way, State House appears to have activated Salami tactics —attempts to gradually take the Deputy President down — and his behaviour did indeed help fuel the urge to edge him out.  

After the Mombasa press conference, for instance, Gachagua went into panic mode, thinking aloud at events and funerals. His tell-all interviews with TV stations telegraphed vulnerability that provided more ammunition to those baying for his blood.

Then, last Tuesday, the National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula gave the nod to the impeachment proceedings, which effectively started the time to wreak vengeance on Gachagua.

Courts have so far declined to issue orders stopping public participation that was in full swing across the country on Friday and Saturday, meaning the Deputy President’s ouster is nigh.

Plagued by claims of disloyalty, unfulfilled promises to each other, incompatible personalities and divergent interests and world views, the relationship between President Ruto and his deputy is so irreparable that the Head of State is now in no mood for calls urging him to spare his principal assistant.

The rapture could have been averted had they each fulfilled their promises.  

“I am a man who was once in uniform, mine will be ‘yes sir, yes sir,’ he said on May 17, 2022. Months later, during his inauguration speech on September 13, 2022, he promised more.

“I want to assure you of my resolve and commitment from the bottom of my heart to be available, to assist you, to manage the affairs of our great nation. I will serve you with loyalty and dedication,” he said in a rousing speech, calling his boss “my friend and brother,” and “a man of great resolute, a true warrior of the Republic of Kenya, a man who is committed to public service.” 

Although the jury is still out on whether Gachagua served his boss well or not, it’s obvious that the pair’s falling-out can partly be attributed to the second-in-command's ambition for more power, a desire that was on display during the Gen Z demonstrations that almost toppled President Ruto’s rule.

Sensing blood in the water, the Deputy President, some government supporters allege, wanted to turn that national misfortune to his advantage, even if that meant risking it all. That gamble, however, seems to have boomeranged, and he must be ruining his brinkmanship. 

Already, a majority of the lawmakers — 291 — from the ruling party and the opposition are itching to see the end of him. 

And if everything goes according to Kibwezi West lawmaker Mutuse Mwengi’s motion that accused Gachagua of gross misconduct, money laundering, corruption, bullying public officers and insubordination, among others, the son of Mau Mau may be out of office in a few days. 

Flabbergasted by the attempt to remove him from office, Gachagua, 59, has at one point asked what was “the unforgivable mistake” that he had committed.

TV interview

“I never expected this to happen. You know, my family is devastated, you know, that this can happen to their father, a man who went out of his way to stand with President William Ruto and made sure he’s elected president,” he said in an interview with Citizen TV’s Sam Gituku.

So much for the once-promising bond that during the September 13, 2022, inauguration appeared to last the entirety of their term.  In their public statements, they even said theirs was a long-term relationship.

Before his election victory, President Ruto, who picked Gachagua out of five candidates, said that he and his deputy wouldn’t have a falling-out similar to the one he had with his boss, former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“What you’ve said will never happen (chuckling). It will not happen,” then-president candidate Ruto said in a TV interview, adding that he would not allow his deputy to be humiliated by junior staff.

Ruto called him “a very passionate leader,” “an accomplished public servant” and a self-made politician whom he could “trust to carry the mantle” after him.

But he had a caveat: If his deputy went rogue, he would be held accountable.

“If he, for example, abuses his office, there’s a law.  The law takes its course,” he said.

Gachagua seems to have an idea about what had befallen him.

“I think, it looks like there’s a jinx around this office of the deputy president,” he said on September 20 this year.

He said he was grateful to President Ruto for not allowing others to demean, harass, persecute or disrespect him in his first year.  

“But, (in) the second year, I must tell you that’s happening. You know, Cabinet secretaries have been abusing the Deputy President,” Gachagua said.

He is indeed lucky to have stayed on for so long. No one had imagined that Ruto would have tolerated that within the presidency.

But as historians will record in detail, Ruto has been playing a long and effective game that seems to have culminated in the impeachment motion.

The day Gachagua castigated the government during the floods and the day he held the press conference in Mombasa as Gen Z protesters poured into Nairobi streets, Ruto gave his deputy enough rope to hang himself.

Apart from the short-lived spark of bravery he showed in Mombasa, Gachagua has cocooned himself in Mt Kenya's interests.

“What’s happening to me is worse than what happened to President Ruto when he was the Deputy President. I ask President Ruto, to please allow me to work for the remaining three years. Let me serve the people of Kenya,” he said, repeating the last sentence one more time. “And keep your promise. Keep your promise, Mr President.”

Before and after the impeachment motion, he was neither the yes-man he had promised he would be, nor he exhibit the fighting spirit he claimed his Mau Mau family was known for.

He lamented more, saying that he’s not being treated even like Ruto when he rebelled against his then-boss, Uhuru Kenyatta.

“President Ruto had a rough time with former President Uhuru Kenyatta. But, luckily for him, he had five years (first term) to work and worked very well without any disturbance,” he said.

Gachagua, an eloquent man with a competitive streak, may not fade away from the political scene. Unless he commits the terrible mistake of waiting for the result of the impeachment that is sure to end his political career, he has a second chance.

The gavel-to-gavel coverage of his differences with his boss has already offered him the publicity he badly needed and he can tap into that in his future political endeavours.

However, Gachagua’s trouble is being worsened by the lack of a reigning Mt Kenya kingpin who can steer the region’s politics and put out fires during crises.

Internal fighting

The Jubilee Party, which ostensibly was the region’s main front, is as ineffective as it has been since 2022. It’s yet to fully recover from an internal infighting that split it into two factions. 

The recent premature Limuru III, which was allegedly financed by Gachagua, according to Moses Kuria, and was expected to be a forum to pick the region’s kingpin failed to inspire Mt Kenya residents.

The best it could come up with was to announce Haki Alliance and revert to a long-gone era and suggest anointing Uhuru as the region’s kingpin, the same man who couldn’t even help his favourite, Raila Odinga, to become president.

Of late, the region, which was supposed to unite three communities — Kikuyu, Meru and Embu — has been drifting apart, with community tribes trying to fend for themselves.

The fluidity of the region’s politics is offering rising stars, such as Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwa, Moses Kuria and others an opportunity to chart a new course for the region, which — if that happens to pass— will mean an end to an era when the Kenyatta family and its allies ruled the roost. Forty-eight lawmakers have recently endorsed Kindiki as Mt Kenya’s kingpin, irking the Deputy President, who angling for the title.

Gachagua had it coming.    

“He is a problem to himself,” said Prof Macharia Munene last May in an interview on Citizen TV’s JKLive show.

In the two years he has been the Deputy President, Gachagua was anything but submissive. However, he has burned a lot of bridges to the extent that he now has no allies smoothing things for him, either with his boss or with Mt Kenya elites who are apathetic about his fate. His skills as a former district officer seem to have done little to help him in a new era. 

Gachagua has offered no vision beyond his call for “fair” sharing of revenue, not shown the charisma or the cunning worthy of the mission he took upon himself, which was to inherit his boss, as his message doesn’t seem to have resonated with the wider public.

His politics is Mt Kenya-centric. His gimmickry — morning runs, in tracksuits and stick in right hand and, sometimes, with his wife, Dorcas — did little to earn him much popularity, nor did the photos of him facing Mount Kenya or the one showing him scooping water with your hands from a stream, a ritual that was a part of seven days of fasting, mediation, prayer and reflection.

The Deputy President was in trouble from the very start, with his quest for power hamstrung by poor messaging, lack of strong political networks and his previous battles with Raila and Uhuru. 

His twin missions of winning over Mt Kenya and isolating Raila are hardly producing their desired results, with President Ruto bringing in Raila’s allies and former President Uhuru baulking at openly associating with him even after the Deputy President bent over backwards to try to make up with his tribesman.

Before and after the elections, Gachagua burned both Uhuru and Raila, hoping that if he went all in his boss’s trust would increase and, hence, more powers.

But his alleged disloyalty with his boss seems to have sunk him more than anything else — and when the pair’s discord became public, few were willing to put their neck on the block for the Deputy President. Nor was Ruto’s playbook helpful.

Unlike Ruto, Gachagua’s victimhood card didn’t seem to work, for his people, the Kikuyu community, who accumulatively ruled Kenya for about 35 years, don’t like victimhood. There was an appreciation among Kikuyus that other tribes should have a shot at the presidency, one reason why former President Uhuru supported opposition leader, Raila Odinga, in the 2022 elections. 

A Mt Kenya chauvinist, Gachagua had, too, no message that resonated with wider Kenyans. 

In a recent rally in Nairobi, he easily reached for his mother tongue, even though his audience included people who didn’t understand his language. When he was later asked about why he used it, his response was: “The fact that I am the Deputy President doesn’t diminish my heritage and where I came from and my language.”

One way

Before Ruto picked him as his running mate, few Kenyans knew Gachagua, unlike Ruto who was in politics in one way or another since the early 1990s and had a pool of prominent political friends across the country.

Gachagua was the political equivalent of a startup and many, including politicians from Mt Kenya, resent his ascent to prominence too early. 

Unlike Ruto before the 2022 elections, the Deputy President now has more enemies than friends and supporters.

This year, the DP has bearded the lion in his den and he’s paying for it, which in his case came in the form of impeachment.

The pair’s brawl has finally come down to revenge, which is now being served cold — to the delight of Ruto’s allies and the annoyance of Gachagua’s supporters.

So far, there was no furious fist-fight inside Parliament over his impeachment. No large-scale demonstrations in his backyards in Kikuyu, Meru and Embu lands. Nothing significant, even though both the Majority Leader and Minority Leader of the House have asked for extra security, with Kimani saying lawmakers were “dealing with a black man with a very black heart.”   

Riggy G has fought alone. Although the thud of his potential fall from grace will be heard all over the country, the repercussions are too early to tell.