Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga has once again reminded us of the harm that will always be caused by politicians who suffer from Foot-in-Mouth disease. His thoroughly objectionable comments that could only be interpreted as celebrating or welcoming the death of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga deserve the strongest condemnation.
His welcome removal as vice-chair of the Council of Governors was an important first in holding those entrusted with positions of leadership accountable for their actions and utterances. But that is not enough, for dangerous and divisive remarks, which are an affront to the constitutional provisions on leadership and integrity, must disqualify the miscreants to all elective and appointive positions.
If Mr Kahiga is to be more properly sanctioned, the minimum we should expect is his removal as a governor. Responsibility in the first instance thus falls squarely on Members of the County Assembly of Nyeri to initiate the necessary impeachment procedures.
Such a move would send powerful messages on various fronts. First, it would be a demonstration that leaders everywhere must be held accountable, and that the leadership and integrity code is alive and enforceable. Secondly, it would help free the people of Nyeri and the rest of the wider Mt Kenya region from association with dangerous and divisive rhetoric that only serves to alienate them from the rest of Kenya.
It needs to be made clear that the likes of Governor Kahiga—and the rest of that insular bunch that surrounds impeached former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua —speak for themselves and not for the community when they reduce all political competition to ethnic baiting.
The future around Mr Kahiga’s utterances should also be a lesson for Mr Gachagua. The former DP has every right to work as hard as he can to secure his role as the Mt Kenya political kingpin; but that can be achieved without that apparent obsession with pushing the “morima” cause to the exclusion of everything else.
Mr Gachagua, at the moment, seems to command a vast voter base that could very likely determine the outcome of the next elections, but he would do well to remember that what will ultimately be at stake is the leadership of Kenya, not that of his village or clan.
Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga addresses a press conference at his home in Nyeri town on October 22, 2025.
Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group
While Mr Kahiga’s utterances may be taken as personal, they ultimately are a representation of the ossified thinking that is so evident in Mr Gachagua’s political formation.
A casual look at the kind of rhetoric spewing out of Mr Gachagua’s camp reveals the lie repeated ad infinitum that Odinga’s political alliance with President William Ruto resulted in development resources being diverted from the Mt Kenya region to the Luo Nyanza region. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is not the slightest evidence that a single cent has been removed from Mt Kenya and taken to Odinga’s Lake Victoria region strongholds.
This is the lie used as justification for Mr Kagiha’s vile utterances, and it is being spread far and wide. It may excite the ignorant masses into rallying round the laager Mr Gachagua is trying to build, but ultimately it only serves to unite the rest of Kenya against a community that seems to suffer a sense of entitlement and privilege.
We have suggested here before that every time Mr Gachagua—and extend that to his minions—opens his mouth, the Ruto brigade in the Kenya Kwanza Alliance and the broad-based government arrangement with the late Odinga’s ODM has reason to go into celebratory jigs. Half their work in the open campaign to isolate, marginalise and demonise Mr Kenya is done for them.
If Nyeri MCAs will not rise to the occasion and remove their governor, there must be alternate mechanisms. This is where that toothless bulldog called the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) must wake up from its deep slumber. It will be important, however, that even as it interrogates Mr Kahiga’s utterances, it must also look at similar verbal diarrhoea which is common from President Ruto’s side of the political divide.
The governing alliance is overflowing with figures who have been given leeway to drive a clear ethnic agenda targeting the Mt Kenya region, much of it involving hate speech and threats to violence. The NCIC and security agencies have often preferred to look the other way when those on the right side of the political divide spew blood-curdling rhetoric.
As we contemplate action against leaders who spew hate and vitriol, however, let us not find an excuse to come down against freedom of speech or to wield the criminal justice system against political foes.
