Be warned: Power is transient, rights aren’t

Chaotic scenes unfolded at a church service in Othaya over the past week, amid allegations of planned intimidation and threats to his safety. Police and other actors reportedly fired tear gas and clashed with his supporters. Gachagua was evacuated. 

This prompted him to publicly accuse the government of plotting to silence him, sparking broader debates over the rule of law and the conduct of the executive in Kenya.

Depending on where you stand politically, you either see poetic justice or political witch-hunting. You either see karma or conspiracy. You either feel vindicated or alarmed. And that, right there, is the problem.

Because constitutional rights do not belong to camps. They do not belong to coalitions. They do not belong to “our people.” They belong to citizens. To all of us. Even the ones we dislike. Especially the ones we dislike.

The moment we start suspending our commitment to rights and due process based on political convenience, we are no longer defending democracy. We are renting it out to power.

Kenya has seen this movie before. William Ruto, as deputy president, was once the target of open institutional hostility. His allies were harassed. His meetings disrupted. His political movement treated as a nuisance to be managed rather than a constituency to be respected. Rigathi Gachagua, before becoming deputy president, was dragged through endless legal and administrative battles that often felt less like justice and more like choreography.

Force became policy

And in that season, Ruto said something that has aged with brutal relevance: “Power is transient.” It was not a slogan. It was a warning. It meant: today’s authority is tomorrow’s vulnerability. Today’s impunity is tomorrow’s indictment. Today’s cheerleaders are tomorrow’s mourners. Yet somehow, we never learn.

James Orengo once stood in Parliament and told members, with his trademark clarity: “This government will punish you more than it will punish me.” He was speaking as a student of history. As someone who understands that systems built on excesses eventually devour their own.

Strongmen always start by going after outsiders. Then critics. Then rivals. Then former allies. Then anyone who looks even slightly inconvenient.

Rigathi Gachagua knows this. Or at least, he should. Because he was there when then Cabinet Secretary of Interior, Kithure Kindiki, presided over the heavy-handed suppression of Azimio protests. When citizens were beaten, dispersed, arrested, intimidated. When constitutional rights to assemble and protest were treated as optional inconveniences. 

When dissent was framed as sabotage and force became policy. 

And many in government cheered. They felt safe. They felt insulated. They felt protected by proximity to power. They believed impunity had a loyalty card.

Now, the same machinery is being pointed in his direction. The same casual disregard. The same institutional coldness. The same unbothered tone. 
The same “processes” that suddenly become flexible when political utility demands it. 

And suddenly, rights matter. While this is poetic irony, it is also governance by muscle memory. History is full of these cycles.

In post-revolutionary France, the guillotine did not stop with the monarchy. It consumed the revolutionaries. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, architects of repression were eventually swallowed by it. In apartheid South Africa, collaborators discovered too late that proximity to injustice does not grant immunity. 

In Latin American juntas, generals who helped overthrow democracy were later overthrown by the same logic.

Fragility of borrowed power

Power that is unchecked does not become disciplined. It becomes confident. And confidence without accountability mutates into arrogance. What makes this moment important is not whether you like Rigathi Gachagua. It is whether you understand that today’s silence becomes tomorrow’s precedent.

If the executive can violate due process today because it is Rigathi, they will do so tomorrow because it is you. Because it is ‘inconvenient’. Because it is ‘necessary’. Because ‘times are hard’. Because of ‘security’. Because of ‘stability’. Because it’s ‘orders from above’.

That is how rights die. Not in explosions; quietly in explanations. Democracy is not defended by applause. It is defended by discomfort. By speaking up when it is awkward. When your friends disagree. When your timeline is hostile. When your political tribe feels betrayed. When silence would be easier.

Every democratic person has a responsibility to resist executive excess consistently. Not emotionally, but institutionally. Not just when it benefits us, but even when it costs us.

You do not defend rights because the victim is innocent. You defend rights because you are vulnerable. You do not demand due process because you love the accused. You demand it because you love the law.

And this is where Kenya repeatedly fails itself. We personalise systems. We tribalise justice. We emotionalise institutions. We reduce structural questions into personality contests. We turn constitutional conversations into fan wars.

So when abuses happen, we argue about who deserves them instead of whether they should happen at all. Rigathi’s situation is a mirror. It reflects the danger of cheering excess. The cost of enabling impunity. The fragility of borrowed power. The loneliness of abandoned principles.

It also reflects us. Our selective outrage. Our convenient blindness. Our short memories. Our willingness to trade tomorrow’s safety for today’s satisfaction. Power is transient. Rights are not. Or at least, they are not supposed to be.

Whether they remain so depends on whether we defend them even when it is unpopular, inconvenient, and politically costly. Because one day, it will be you.

And the silence you practiced will testify against you.

The writer is an active citizen and owner of a tech start-up. lewisngunyi10@ gmail.com