How DP Gachagua talked himself out of a job

By COLLINS AJUOK

The much-anticipated impeachment motion of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua finally made it to the floor of the National Assembly on Tuesday this week. Whichever way this goes, it will mark a dubious milestone. The first and only other time Parliament attempted to remove the president’s principal assistant was in 1989, when Vice President Josephat Karanja resigned as his no-confidence vote was underway in the House.

However, Gachagua will be the first DP in the 2010 constitutional dispensation to undergo this repudiation. If he opts to sit tight in office throughout it without resigning, he will become the first to be removed via a full impeachment trial, assuming there are enough numbers in both houses to pass it. The rhetoric preceding this suggests that there will be no surprises, as the requisite numbers will be easily met to impeach the DP, after having alienated most legislators with his acid tongue.

But, is it a case of extreme naivety or just poor political skills that Gachagua got here so soon the new regime? The DP clearly doesn’t visit pubs in the country. If he did, he would pick up the distinct “Mt Kenya fatigue”, prevalent in bar political talk. The presidency has been held by people from that region for a combined total of 35 years, largely based on tribal exclusion and supremacist vibe. The DP must surely have known that parading his community as more deserving of state largesse than others, was bound to spook the rest of the nation. It also has restored certain historical injustices to the national conversation.

The DP’s backers draw parallels between what is happening to Gachgua now and what happened to former DP William Ruto under President Uhuru Kenyatta. To his credit, Ruto made his political tours mostly to Uhuru’s own Central Kenya region, rather than to his Rift Valley base. Anyone who wants to be President or to hold high office must begin by expanding his horizon beyond his village, because ultimately leading the nation requires people other than ‘your own’ believe in your dreams and ambitions. It appears nobody told DP Gachagua about this principle.

There is a cliché that once one finds himself in a hole, he or she ought to stop digging. Although by the DP’s rhetoric aimed at both the President and his close allies, one would have presumed that by the first quarter of this year, Gachgua would have toned it down and sought a quiet diplomatic resolution of issues with Ruto. That was when the President’s side appeared ready to start fighting back, the Instead, Gachagua cranked up the volume and even led rallies in his political backyard at which the President was insulted, in broad daylight. With this, his comeback chances diminished considerably.

It is baffling how DP Gachagua has been so brazen and gung-ho about his “rebellion”. It feels as if he had some guarantees that nothing would happen to him. In fact, I suspect this is what fuelled the narrative for weeks that the whole Ruto-Gachagua fallout was stage-managed to divert Kenya’s attention from other biting national crises, such as the cost of living and joblessness. At every turn, Gachagua seemed to dare Ruto to do his worst, while also consolidating his ethnic support base.

You would have imagined that once the heat was on and threats of impeachment went public, Gachagua would engage in a strategic retreat and live to fight another day. But like a raging bull, the former DP just didn’t know when to stop.

I have a hypothesis, especially in view of social media bragging by the DP’s supporters that they would activate their ‘Samson Option’ and go down with the entire government if their man was removed from office. My assessment is that Gachagua, a former administrator, was conscious of the Mt Kenya-dominated security establishment that President Kenyatta had left in place. Perhaps he figured that if his actions and words led to a breakdown of law and order, “his people” would be at the frontline in restoring peace, with underlying benefits in place.

This may explain the mad rush to square off with President Ruto, as if figuring any further delays would disrupt the balance of power within the state’s security and administrative networks.

A telling sign was evident in June when the DP called a press conference in Mombasa, and tore into the character and performance of the Noordin Haji, Director General of the National Intelligence Service. It was an unprecedented performance. Simply put, by going after senior security officers, while also poisoning the Central Kenya masses against the government, Gachagua was pushing national security limits. He seemed to eel he had some sort of cover.

We shouldn’t be surprised, however, that the DP turned out this way. It is possible that people not directly associated with his UDA party and its internal intrigues may not have known much about him, or the reasons President Ruto chose him as his running mate. But right on the inauguration podium on September 13, 2022, with a whole nation watching and visiting dignitaries present, the former Mathira MP turned the solemn occasion into a theatre of the absurd. He launched into an unprovoked barrage directed at the former President Uhuru and perceived enemies.

At that time, the two key ingredients of the inauguration should have been magnanimity and unity. Indeed, if the lack of a sense of occasion had a face, it would be that of Rigathi Gachagua. Subsequent to taking office, political watchers and possibly the whole country must have been surprised by the DP’s tendency to see enemies in every corner, and the crass manner in which he went for them. He has had an unhinged hatred for ODM chief Raila Odinga, a man he has had publicly described in derogatory terms.

His slurs against former President Uhuru Kenyatta and the entire Kenyatta family were X-rated stuff, even though he now purports to have seen the light and wishes to embrace Uhuru as part of his battle team in difficult moments. But having taken on Uhuru, Raila and now Ruto, Gachagua bit off more than he could chew. The three represent the most formidable money and political networks, a combined behemoth that no one person should really have been foolish enough to fight all at once.

The DP’s obsession with the politics of exclusion and tribal supremacy was not sane. No holder of the office of deputy or vice president in Kenya has ever gone full throttle in preaching division as Gachagua has done. In a nutshell, his holding high office while consistently promoting only the interests of his community, has made his continued stay untenable.

Looking at the number of MPs who signed the notice of motion for his removal, it is safe to say that the two-thirds required to pass the motion will easily be achieved. The same will happen in the Senate. When the hammer finally falls, it will be safe to say that outside the Mt Kenya region, there will be little in terms of tears and pain following his departure. And if he wants to know where and how the rain started beating him, the mirror will be a good place to look.