Why DP Gachagua is his own worst enemy

Rigathi Gachagua is a ‘tragic’ man, one to be pitied. He struggles to be recognised as leader of the Mountain; even imagines himself to be king.

Back in December 2022, barely four months after taking office as Deputy President, columnist Macharia Gaitho noticed growing splits between President William Ruto and his deputy over Gachagua’s desire to control Mount Kenya and to “consolidate an independent political base”. In doing so, Mr Gachagua declared, “We will unite the region, Mount Kenya, so that we speak with one voice.”

Gachagua compounded his situation by making it appear as if Ruto’s popularity in the Mountain was due to his doing. Yet, even before appointing Gachagua his running mate in May 2022, Ruto had in 2021 declared himself leader of the Mountain while at Nyahururu DEB Primary School in Laikipia.

He reportedly asserted: “I am welcoming them to the Mountain, but as they come, let them know that mlima ina wenyeji... When they were away. I made several tours of the region.” Dr Ruto believed that he secured the Mountain because he was present when it counted while his rivals, busy in boardrooms, had run away from reality.

Gachagua’s claim was thus an infringement on a presumed Ruto presidential preserve of having independently conquered the Mountain in the absence of Ruto’s competitors.

The collision between Ruto and Gachagua, due to incompatible claims, was therefore inevitable but Gachagua surprisingly refused to see it coming.

Ruto, on his part, saw it coming and played up Gachagua’s political naivety into self-discrediting. As a result, Gachagua subsequently messed up publicly, showing lack of public decorum in his utterances.

This self-discrediting, Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga believes, was all part of Ruto’s political mischief. To call Gachagua ‘primitive’, fumed Kahiga, was to insult people of the Mountain.

The import of Kahiga’s assertion that Ruto repeatedly tricked Gachagua into ridiculing himself was two-fold. It implied that Gachagua has problems thinking for himself and judging what is appropriate to accept and inappropriate to ignore or reject. He thus lacked capacity to tell the mature and the immature which in turn cast doubt as to his leadership qualities.

It also created the impression that Ruto has such a low opinion of the people of the Mountain that he believes they are gullible and can be browbeaten into accepting almost anything as long as two things happen.

First, create a ‘leader’ for them as the nyapara (supervisor) or instrument of indirect rule and second allow them to chant Mwathani Agocwo while singing “Ngaai Waakwa, Ngai Wakwa, Ngai Wakwa niwa magegania” (My God is a God of miracles). Kahiga grumbled that Ruto benefitted other regions while hardship visited the Mountain.

Although Kahiga aroused sympathy for Gachagua’s growing political misery, it was for Gachagua’s to extricate himself from the quagmire he had plunged into.

The Gen Z uprising gave him a bit of reprieve and even thrust Ruto and the DP into a new campaign mood but Gachagua was never the central player in Ruto’s anti-Gen Z calculations.

That player was Raila Odinga, helping Ruto to undercut the Gen Zs in return for relegating Gachagua to simple surrogate roles while giving plum appointments to Raila’s cronies whose ‘homecoming’ celebrations annoyed Kahiga.

There was, however, more than the ODM homecoming celebrations to anger Kahiga and other Gachagua diehards; other claimants increased their boldness in questioning his leadership credentials and seemed to disorient him.

Gachagua is disoriented partly because he reportedly advises himself. Claiming he is the best for the Mountain because he is Number Two in the state power pecking order, he lacks ability to gauge political reality.

Junet Mohammed’s offer to add lakeside mountains to Gachagua’s leadership is a mockery. He probably, as he asserts, ‘listens to the ground’ but there is doubt as to whether he hears the ground. That ground wants him to show maturity, shut up, and stop being closed minded. Inability to do that is Rigathi Gachagua’s tragedy.