Government unites against Impeached DP Rigathi Gachagua

In a show of unity that has recently become the norm, the Executive and Parliament are fighting in one corner.

The Office of the President, the National Assembly, the Senate and the State Law Office are united against impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

In court, they are fighting to condemn the beleaguered DP, in office courtesy of court orders. The National Assembly recently impeached Gachagua, with the Senate upholding the charges.

President William Ruto wants his deputy gone, as does the bicameral Parliament. Gachagua, all alone, looks cornered as his lawyers fight an assault from all corners. On the first day of hearing a case challenging his removal from office, Gachagua also appeared to be fighting off the Judiciary, which he believes acted unfairly in the trial.

His gripe with the Chief Justice Martha Koome-led arm of government was that it improperly constituted the three-judge bench hearing the case, which was yesterday defeated. The court yesterday noted that Gachagua’s counsel was preoccupied with “casting aspersions” on the conduct of the bench. Gachagua, who has been on a losing streak, finds himself on a path rigged with landmines. No other Number Two in Kenya’s history has faced impeachment and the kind of assault the besieged DP has been under.

It is an unlikely situation that would have the Executive, the presidency, at war with itself. But it is a situation Kenyans have grown accustomed to since former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tenure.

In their second term, Uhuru and President William Ruto, then DP, could not see eye to eye. After years of shadowboxing, they went all-out on each other in the run-up to the 2022 general election.

Uhuru instigated a purge targeting Ruto’s allies in Parliament courtesy of numbers granted to him by his handshake with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Ruto, like Gachagua, had been opposing government policies, which included the flopped Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) constitutional amendment push.

When the BBI passed overwhelmingly at the National Assembly, there was talk that Ruto would be impeached but such plans never materialised. And so the Head of State was better off than his deputy, isolated, politically and legally, by the arms of government. Many have argued that Gachagua  brought his troubles upon himself courtesy of his unsavoury remarks. The DP has been branded a tribalist for fronting the interests of the Mount Kenya region, references he has struggled to fight off.

“The biggest calamity in Kenya is that ethnic obsession has permeated deeply among the top stratum of the educated elite. All political parties recognised under parliament standing orders are either wholly or partly ethnic-based and formed and led by the elite,” said Saboti MP Caleb Amisi. 

“The youth below 30 years are the only ones with an iota of nationalism and therefore capable of changing the trend. There has never been a change of regime since independence. Rather, an oppressive system is replaced by another oppressive one to punish the previous one and/or prevent another one. We have never had a Head of state; Kenya has been under tribal monarchies. We need to establish a Republic - the Republic of Kenya,” he added.