Riggy G effect: Why political fortunes could pivot around him

Former Deputy President, Mr Rigathi Gachagua, shares one unique quality with President William Ruto that is likely to play his trump card in the intense search for the United Opposition presidential flag bearer to face the incumbent.

The two share the common credentials of being the only deputy presidential candidates or running mates who ever helped their presidential tickets beat rival campaigns to emerge victorious.

Twice as deputy presidential candidate or running mate, President Ruto helped Uhuru Kenyatta beat his foremost rival, the late Raila Odinga, in 2013 and in 2017. It was never in doubt that the result would have been different had he preferred Odinga to Uhuru.

In 2022, Ruto chose then Mathira MP, Mr Rigathi Gachagua, as his running mate and he did not disappoint in buoying the joint ticket over the critical finishing line of the 50 per cent plus one winning threshold to emerge victorious over the rival Azimio presidential ticket.

Indeed, much of the legitimacy shenanigans the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) household is languishing in while trying to warm its way back into the hearts and minds of the voter-rich Gema nation is rooted in the humiliating overthrow of Gachagua from his number two perch and replacing him with the unelected Prof Kithure Kindiki, who has failed to gain traction in the Gema nation.

With thirteen months to the official campaign period and closing deadlines for nomination of candidates, the push is coming to shove for United Opposition or “WANTAM” presidential wannabes to put on the big boys’ pants in casting lots on who is the first among equals in their ranks, and who is not to be crowned to lead the charge against the incumbent.

The moment of truth is not long in coming when they have to accept there are no lame ducks or sore losers in this presidential election enterprise, quit sterile shadow boxing, unveil the official team leader and his campaign formation, and get down to the business of rolling out a winning programme.

Even the patience of potential campaign financiers is wearing thin with the current state of permanent flux and a team that looks rudderless.

While each has been pitching his public record as the central sizzle as to why they fit the bill, the principals have to contend with the singular “added advantage” distinction of their comrade-in-arms, Riggy G, as the first among equals owing to his unique credentials as the only one in that camp to have helped a presidential ticket compete and win at the ballot.

On the opposite side, they are up against an incumbent veteran who knows the lay of the land from his many political battles, who twice helped his predecessor win two general elections as running mate in 2013 and 2017 before winning his own in 2022.

President William Ruto is revving for the fourth presidential contest, the first one without the late Raila Odinga breathing down his neck.

In terms of real nuts-and-bolts comparative credentials and experience in presidential elections, the closest rivals to Riggy G’s fit-for-purpose credentials for the United Opposition ticket are Wiper Patriotic Front (WPF) leader, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, and People’s Liberation Party (PLP) leader, Martha Karua.

Both have played running mates before for presidential candidates of major party formations, besides being unsuccessful presidential candidates themselves in the past.

Kalonzo was running mate for Raila Odinga in 2013 and 2017, and would be persuaded to step down for Ms Martha Karua to play running mate for Raila Odinga in 2022, a ticket that would lose to the Ruto-Gachagua ticket.

However, while both would qualify for high grades for effort expended, Riggy G beats them both for “excellently meeting expectations”, borrowing the CBC performance grading lingo.

Indeed, Dr Fred Matiang’i and Eugene Wamalwa were members of the Azimio campaign formation as senior Cabinet secretaries, and only JB Muturi of DP was with Riggy G in the KK campaign.

A corrosive, fierce contest is rife with the proverbial greasy pole antics of pledging undying, juicy love for each other and ironclad commitment to the collective “WANTAM” agenda on the public podium when the cameras are on.

However, at nightfall, they unleash every chicanery in the book to undermine each other’s credentials under the cover of darkness, each with his own online, unrelenting armada firing at their daytime ‘comrades’.

Online night-time guerrilla formations associated with the Jubilee Party take the prize of being the most robust, vibrant and virulent — more than the state-leaning online brigade — in the energy expended attacking Democratic Citizen Party (DCP) leader Mr Rigathi Gachagua, rather than articulating or defending the WANTAM agenda.

Kalonzo has also been on the receiving end of these online guerrillas without uniform or known home addresses, but whose core mission seems to amplify and escalate President Ruto’s and his surrogates’ critical talking points against Kalonzo and his leadership record of 40 years, while denigrating Riggy G’s very popular volleys into the “cousins and in-laws” territories.

The intense parsing of every syllable, statement, move and slip of the tongue Riggy G makes to mock and denigrate even the plainest of common political blusters shows there exists fierce mistrust, dread and resentment behind efforts to mock, denigrate and minimise the phenomenal Riggy G Effect that buoys united opposition rallies and national visibility.

Remarkably, they do not expend the same energy in expounding and amplifying the fact that Riggy G is a major attraction at United Opposition events, regardless of region or function — whether at funerals, church services, or rallies.

It remains a strange curiosity that their chieftains continue to allow them such liberty and latitude to badmouth fellow ‘principals’ with impunity and with little care for decorum in the event of deserved or necessary criticism.

Nevertheless, like the proverbial Teflon skin, attacks on Riggy G from both government and opposition ranks seem to have had little impact in negating his popularity and influence in the public square.

The self-styled “mtoto wa Mau Mau” seems to have developed a rhinoceros skin that has served him in weathering storms that would have crushed a lesser mortal.

Riggy G has demonstrated phenomenal broad shoulders and fortitude to withstand heavy-calibre political bullets from two presidents in the last four years that staggered him, but he has remained standing.

He took heavy personal hits in 2022 when state agents would drag him from bed at dawn and dump him in police cells for weeks, freeze his bank accounts, and disrupt his businesses by breaking into his private offices on State House Avenue at night, all in an effort to compel him to recant his support for William Ruto.

His cardinal sin was mobilising his kith and kin in Mt Kenya for Ruto and against the state-funded candidate, the late Raila Odinga. He stood his ground.

When the votes were counted, the results were as if the entire Mountain region had spent the night before in the same house from Githurai to Tharaka Nithi to cast a solid vote for the Ruto-Gachagua ticket.

Two years into his job as deputy president, he found himself in the eye of the storm instigated by a boss determined to overthrow him from his elected position. The lethal weapon unleashed against him was his former comrades-in-arms in Kenya Kwanza conniving with former nemeses from Azimio and ODM to cremate his short-lived stellar political career on live national TV in Parliament.

The televised acrimonious and humiliating “anti-Mrima” chorus in Parliament ended in his impeachment from office in late 2024.

Although many thought it marked the final funeral rites of his political career, Riggy G has since reinvented himself as the most sought-after guest on popular national and regional TV and radio talk shows on the topical public discourses of the day.

Whether they love, loathe, dread, or resent him, Riggy G finds himself in a unique position where every politician aspiring for any position in the Mt Kenya region is drooling for his endorsement, as used to be the case with the late Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta at the height of their political reign.

Presidential wannabes eyeing the Mountain vote also court him. He, too, seeks his comrades’ endorsement to face the incumbent he helped into office in 2022.