The sun, emerging in flashes between heavy banks of cloud, grew vast and threatening. As if sporadically dragged into outer space and into closer orbit, it winked in and out of existence — like twinkling lights with a washing in, a blurring together, and a bleeding in of lines.
Beneath this vast Kenyan sky, a brown bull stepped onto the patterned courtyard of Rigathi Gachagua’s Wamunyoro home, its broad back shining in the afternoon light. The paving stones, arranged in neat circles of terracotta red and pale cream, gave the scene the air of a carefully tended homestead — serene and with that air of ease of being home.
The bull stood at the centre of attention, its head lowered, and there was a tense moment as the bull made a few quick steps forward as if to charge. Eugene Wamalwa stepped back, giving way. He then carefully held the rope and handed it to Rigathi Gachagua, who looked amused.
The scene reminds one of the visits to an oracle in the ancient world. No one went empty-handed to an oracle. In ancient Greece, the most revered oracle was at Delphi, high on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Kings, generals, and envoys from city-states climbed the sacred mountain bearing gold, goats, and other gifts. Croesus of Lydia sent solid gold and a lion cast from the same metal; lesser petitioners took a goat, sprinkled it with cold water, and watched to see whether it trembled, for only a trembling animal meant that the Greek god Apollo would speak. The Greeks called the place the omphalos, the navel of the world.
DCP leader Rigathi Gachagua and his wife Pastor Dorcas Rigathi welcome Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka at their Wamunyoro home in Nyeri County on October 26, 2026.
Photo credit: Mwangi Muiruri | Nation Media Group
Kenya, it seems, has found its navel in Wamunyoro, a village in Mathira, Nyeri County, whose paths and cypress hedges were, until October 2024, chiefly unknown. When Members of Parliament impeached Gachagua, they did not know that his village would become a place of pilgrimage for political leaders.
The traffic of pilgrims in recent days has been considerable. On Mashujaa Day, 20 October, only hours after Gachagua landed from a sojourn of some fifty days in the United States, Senator Edwin Sifuna went to Wamunyoro at the head of the Linda Mwananchi delegation: Babu Owino, Boni Khalwale, Caleb Amisi, Cleophas Malala, Faith Odhiambo, and others. The host welcomed them as his cousins.
A few days later, on Monday, 26 October, Kalonzo Musyoka, accompanied by various Ukambani leaders, visited Wamunyoro. Later that same day, Eugene Wamalwa, leader of DAP-Kenya, led the brown bull into Gachagua’s hands. A bull is a great offering by Kenyan standards. Among the Greeks, the biggest sacrifice was the hecatomb, a hundred oxen. In Kenya, a bull is what one brings to seal a bride price, a reconciliation, or an elder’s honour.
Chinua Achebe understood the power of an oracle in traditional Igbo society. In Things Fall Apart, the most feared in Umuofia was the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves, Agbala. When Unoka, Okonkwo's lazy father, went to ask why his harvests kept failing, the priestess Chika was blunt. She told him the fault was not with the gods but with his own idle hands.
Gachagua is like an oracle. He is out of office, but what he commands, or claims to command, is the vast Mount Kenya vote. Gachagua, as the oracle, has a lot of work to do as he balances the interests of Sifuna, Kalanzo, Wamalwa, and others who are counting on his support as they go for the presidency in next year’s elections.
This is where Achebe’s sterner parable, in Arrow of God, comes in. Ezeulu, chief priest of Ulu, possessed a single, awesome power: he alone could name the day of the New Yam Feast, after eating one sacred yam at each new moon. Detained for two months by the colonial administration, he returned home nursing a grievance against his own people, who had not stood by him. He insisted on eating the two yams that had gone uneaten in his absence and so delayed the harvest by two months. The yams rotted in the fields. Desperate, the people of Umuaro carried their harvest to the Christian church, which promised them the protection that their own priest withheld.
DCP party Leader Rigathi Gachagua met with Linda Mwananchi Party leb by leader Edwin Sifuna at his Wamunyoro residence.
Photo credit: Pool
Here lies the question that Wamunyoro must answer before the next new moon (the 2027 elections). An oracle draws its power from standing above the contest, from being the place where rival ambitions are weighed. The moment the oracle descends from the pedestal to join the queue of petitioners, it ceases to be an oracle and becomes merely another candidate. And the moment a priest confuses his office with his grievance like Ezeulu did, the congregation begins to look for another altar. Mr Gachagua should therefore take care and be conscious of this fact. He has played the kingmaker’s hand with undeniable skill so far but if he declares his intention to run for president, he will no longer be an oracle.
At the temple at Delphi, the Greeks carved two words: gnothi seauton, “know thyself”. They were addressed to the pilgrim, but they can serve the oracle also. Gachagua should know why he is an oracle now. How powerful the Oracle of Wamunyoro is will not be known by the pilgrims that go to Mathira this season. It will be known in August 2027, when the people of Kenya, like the people of Umuaro, decide for themselves which side to give their harvest.
