Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua attending a church service at PCEA Mwiki on April 6, 2025.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Friday spilled more secrets about what he saw in his days as the second-in-command, revealing instances where he blatantly defied or ignored President William Ruto.
While the Constitution mandates the deputy president to be principal assistant to the President executing assigned roles, Mr Gachagua confessed that there were times when he demanded more than that.
Tearing into what he perceives as President Ruto’s flaws, Mr Gachagua inadvertently admitted some of the accusations that had been used to kick him out of power, and one ally of Dr Ruto’s says it is a confirmation that he was a serious threat to national security.
Mr Gachagua was speaking in Nairobi during the launch of the book The Fight for Order by former Attorney-General Justin Muturi.
The book delves into the country’s kleptocratic system, exposing the inner workings of a state captured by obsessive greed, visionless hustle, and crude impunity.
President William Ruto with then deputy president Rigathi Gachagua.
The book further provides an insider’s perspective, drawing from Mr Muturi’s four decades of public service, including his roles in the judiciary where he was a magistrate, MP for Siakago, opposition politics, Speaker of the National Assembly, Cabinet Secretary and the Attorney-General.
The book rips back the curtain, offering a raw and blistering portrayal of Kenya’s political landscape, where politics often kills moral values, renders institutions impotent, and the rule of law becomes a chronology of bends and breaks.
In his address, Mr Gachagua painted a picture of someone who deeply believed he was a co-president whose duty was to oversight his boss and embarrass him if need be.
“I was the only one man enough who would confront President Ruto and call him to order. I disregarded most of his directives if I found them not in conformity with my opinion,” he said.
“Several times, the President would tell me to do something but I would refuse,” he added. “I would stand up against some things and demand that I be part and parcel of some of his decisions.”
After he was impeached in October last year, President Ruto nominated Prof Kithure Kindiki. During Prof Kindiki’s inauguration on November 1, 2025, President Ruto told him: “I want you to be the Deputy President that I did not have for the past two years.”
President Ruto said he desired to have a Deputy President who understood the standing orders of that office as the principal assistant.
“I need a dutiful, obedient, development-conscious...a person who understands our agenda of implementing the bottom-up economic agenda, one who has a national outlook about issues and who can help unite the country,” the President said.
Mr Gachagua’s revelations prompted President Ruto’s loyalists to hit back, saying his impeachment was an act of tempting fate.
“You have heard Mr Gachagua confess by his own tongue that he was executing a silent office coup against the president. He has confessed that he was undermining the President and making him feel inferior to him,” said Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri on Saturday morning.
“Hopefully, Mt Kenya region people and the country at large will now see how Mr Gachagua was a serious threat to national security where his mindset was not ready to pursue separation of power, he schemed to be all the power by himself,” added Mr Kiunjuri. “This even serves to sensitise those making alliances with Mr Gachagua about the immense danger they are courting should they end up in power with him.”
“I want to warn the country about Mr Gachagua. He is bold enough not to hide his condescending and illiterate nature about law and order...he is a man who cannot comprehend constitutionalism. He is dangerously disruptive and if President Ruto was to be recklessly candid like Gachagua is, he can reveal how dangerous Gachagua is,” Mr Kiunjuri further remarked.
The United opposition leaders led by former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua during a press conference at SKM command centre in Nairobi on November 3, 2025.
This was in reaction to Mr Gachagua’s address where he incriminated himself in acts of outright sabotage to his boss to a point that he threatened some presidential tasks with total shutdown.
Mr Gachagua had revisited the Cabinet reshuffle that followed the youth-led protests of 2024.
“After the Gen Z protest in June 2024, the president dissolved the Cabinet and he was struggling to decide what to do, including attempts to bring in Raila Odinga and his men,” he said, adding that he allowed the President to proceed without much opposition.
“But when he announced the first batch of his Cabinet appointments, none of the positions I had negotiated for from my counties had been given to Embu County. I asked him why, and he told me to wait a bit,” he said.
He added that during the final set of appointments, the President called him (Mr Gachagua) as well as Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi to flank him as he announced to the nation the new-look Cabinet.
Mr Gachagua recalled that he rejected the invitation, posing the question: “How do we flank you to announce names we do not know?”
Mr Gachagua said the President tried to single out Mr Mudavadi by telling him “Musalia, let’s go”.
Mr Gachagua, who is now Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP) leader, revealed that he refused to cooperate with the president.
“I told him if we are flanking you during the announcement, we must be aware of what you are announcing, as is the usual practice. I cannot flank you to announce a Cabinet list that I have not seen. I cannot hear the names for the first time together with the rest of Kenyans from you and the press,” he said.
President William Ruto (right) and former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
Mr Gachagua said the President became very angry to a point he rushed back to his office.
“As for Musalia, my God—he was shaking like a leaf, saying, ‘Omwami (chief), how can you challenge the President like that? How? Please, this is not right,’” Mr Gachagua narrated.
“I told him, ‘Musalia, my friend, do you know that your name could be missing from that list? The only person who is safe is me because I am elected. I’m actually also saving you.’”
Mr Gachagua then claimed that Dr Ruto came out of his office and threw a paper at his face, adding that he picked it up and discovered that Mr Muturi had been dropped and replaced “with a name that Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire had proposed”.
Mr Gachagua said: “I asked the President who was the new appointee to the office of Attorney-General and he responded that it was that of a good person to help him run the government.”
“I said no. There was no way I was flanking him to announce a list that had Mr Muturi missing. I reminded him that he had earlier appointed a little-known person from Meru into the Cabinet without consulting me. I said I did not know the homestead of the new appointee and I was not going to flank him while announcing it,” he added.
Cornered, the President – according to Mr Gachagua – kept a gloomy silence that lasted about three minutes as Mudavadi continued with his shaking.
“Then the President threw the paper to me and told me, ‘Okay, replace that name with that of Muturi but I wonder where all this tribalism will get you to.’ I took the paper and whitewashed the new name and in its place I wrote that of Mr Muturi,” he said.
But the drama was not over.
“I told the President that I knew him well...that should he dare read out the name of the appointee I had replaced, then I would walk out when the cameras were live,” he said.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
He added: “That is how I saved Mr Muturi’s job. But in three months’ time, I was thrown out. Moments later, Muturi followed me out of government.”
When Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse tabled 11 grounds for Mr Gachagua’s impeachment, two counts related to President Ruto lamentations stood out: Undermining the president and the Cabinet as well as a compounded charge of tribalism, nepotism and incitement.
Mr Gachagua also revealed that had spied on Dr Ruto regarding Mr Muturi’s son who had been abducted, adding that he helped set up a one-on-one confrontation with the President.
“After Muturi called me lamenting that his son had been abducted, I called all the security bosses including Mr Kindiki who then was the Interior CS. They all took me in circles. I called the President and he feigned surprise and consternation. I told Muturi: ‘I know the President well. Our conversation reveals to me he knows where your son is,’” he said.
Mr Gachagua said he spied on where the President was and the time he was to fly back to State House.
“When I was tipped off that the President was about 10 minutes away from returning to State House, I told Muturi to race there and confront him like a man. Within two hours after the confrontation, Muturi had his son back,” he said.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua attending a church service at PCEA Mwiki on April 6, 2025.
Mr Gachagua said he had also devised a way of becoming unreachable by the President while executing delegated tasks such as sub-cabinet meetings.
“The President had a habit of instructing his men in the Cabinet to brief him on our deliberations so that he could issue orders on us. But I had devised a way of leaving the phone behind so as not to be reachable by the President, especially on those issues where he had a personal interest,” he said.
Mr Gachagua agreed that on many occasions, he was the bridge between the President and some Cabinet Secretaries “and I supported defiance even in President Ruto’s face when I felt it was justified”.
Mr Gachagua also revealed that he had, during Cabinet meetings, opposed the Finance Bill 2024 that led to the Gen Z protests.
In a clear case of duplicating the President’s roles, Mr Gachagua was to later issue an address to the nation a few minutes after the President had made his speech about the Gen Z protestors who had breached the Parliament and torched parts of it.
While the president dismissed the protestors as treasonous acts by criminal elements inclined to terrorism, Mr Gachagua said in his address: “Those are not criminals. They are our children who mean no harm and their desire is to be heard, engaged and made to feel entitled to their country.”
