New strategy emerges as critics target Gachagua

The battle of titans between President William Ruto and his deputy, Rigathi Gachagua is far from over.

Despite a truce announced after a State House visit by close to 60 MPs from Gachagua's backyard announcing a ceasefire against the besieged second in command, The Standard has established that cessation of hostilities was just a change of tack.

Before the Saturday meeting, Gachagua had been described by some Ruto's allies as a dead man walking because of a planned impeachment but this has since changed. The frontal attack has been abandoned in favour of more subtle ways that will not lionise the DP and make political martyr.

The impeachment was brought to a halt after the Head of State summoned Mt Kenya leaders and convinced them to drop the ouster bid due to what sources termed as Gachagua’s ability to turn the tide in his favour by playing victim which may hit the President’s re-election campaign in 2027.

"The President was between a rock and a hard place because he wanted to appease the MPs and the electorate who seemed inclined with Gachagua as witnessed during the tour," an MP told The Standard. 

But even as the MPs announced shelving their ambitious plan, they seem to have developed another strategy to fight Gachagua.

The legislators largely drawn from Mt Kenya are now scouting in vernacular radio and TV stations to depict the second in command as anti-people while women leaders have regrouped and started women empowerment projects where Gachagua’s name is synonymous with the meetings.

On Tuesday, Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri was at Inooro fm where he associated Gachagua with fighting the government and talking ill about it.

Kiunjuri claimed there were over 100,000 sponsored protesters who invaded Nairobi last month even as he continued with his past remarks that some had been ferried from Mt Kenya.

“They are asking how I knew about it. I was in Bunge Towers, 23rd floor and I saw over 20,000 protesters from Haille Sellasie avenue all the way to NHIF, there was also a mammoth crowd from Mombasa road to Bunyala road and at the All Saints Cathedral to Moi Avenue,” Kiunjuri said.

He added: “Gachagua’s allies have been summoned to record statements at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and they should not fight me but ask the detectives why they have been singled.”

He was responding to Gachagua’s remarks where he wondered how Kiunjuri counted the protesters and how he recognised that all had come from the Agikuyu community terming his remarks as ‘reckless’ and aimed at stereotyping the Agikuyu youth as destructive.

The MP disclosed that after the forum with the President they decided to engage the President directly on the development agenda even as he said Gachagua had no monopoly of making noise to others, which may be interpreted as a scheme to face him head on.

“In our last forum, we decided that we shall engage the President over the development of Mt Kenya region. Whoever wants to continue making noise must know that he has no monopoly on making noise about others,” Kiunjuri said.

He also disclosed that Mt Kenya MPs would be heading for a retreat in Naivasha before embarking on political tours in the Mt Kenya.

And Murang'a Women Representative Betty Maina was hosting 12 women leaders in Murang'a in ‘a women empowerment project’ which turned out to be a forum to fight Gachagua.

The women leaders included Ann Wamuratha (Kiambu), Faith Gitau (Nyandarua) Leah Sankaire(Kjaiando) Cynthia Muge (Nandi) Beautrice Adagala (Vihiga) Rebbeca Tonkei (Narok) Naomi Wako (Marsabit), Umul-Kheir Kassim (Mandera), Liza Chelule (Nakuru(), Jane Kagiri (Laikipia), and Alice Nganga (Thika)

“We have decided to be on the side of the President and focus on development and not the side of empty rhetoric. We do not want politics of fighting elected leaders,” Muratha said at the forum.

Gachagua’s woes were evident on Monday after officers from the Interior Ministry refused to attend a meeting he had called to discuss the status of the fight against illicit brew and drugs.

The meeting, The Standard has learnt, could not continue after senior government officers from the Interior docket gave it a wide berth denying the much needed quorum.

“The meeting was aimed at providing policy guidelines for the Interior Ministry who would then implement them in the fight against the alcohol menace but it did not take place,” a source told The Standard.

Gachagua has in the past accused ‘overzealous top government officials’ in the Ministry of Interior of sabotaging the fight against illicit brews and drug abuse by clandestinely reopening bars without his knowledge.

“It’s unfortunate that some senior officials, working in cahoots with MPs, have embarked on reopening the bars we had closed due to their involvement in selling illicit brews,” Gachagua said.

This followed the Interior docket’s move on June 14 to allow 13 more manufacturers and distillers of second-generation alcohol to resume operations whose licenses had been suspended.

Last month, Gachagua lamented to the President at the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa (AIPCA) in Nyandarua County that some government officials have been disrespectful to him to the extent of refusing to show up for meetings to explain why they resumed issuance of permits to producers of illicit brews.

“We ask you not to allow officers in your government allow the return of illicit brews and drugs to kill our children. Let me address you as my brother, Mr President, let it not happen that poison is brought back to this country to kill our children when you are the President,” Gachagua said. 

Gachagua’s allies led by Benjamin Gathiru (Embakasi Central) Njeri Maina (Kirinyaga) and former Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri told The Standard separately that they were aware that the President and his allies had only hid the dagger on the impeachmen,t but were alert on their moves.

“The impeachment of the Deputy President may have been shelved after the President's intervention. However, key plotters are still in government. Even the thought of it, is a sufficient wake-up call to how Mt Kenya will fashion its politics in the run up to 2027. As the saying goes, one bitten, twice shy. The Deputy President must never lose sight of the ground and the shifting allegiances as is the nature of politics,” Maina said.