In the early days of the Kenya Kwanza administration, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua had vowed to never allow opposition leader Raila Odinga into the government saying he had laid “traps” around the statehouse to ensure that never happens.
The DP would talk about a “shareholder” government comprising of those who gave them a huge number of votes, at one point his views contrasting with those of his boss President William Ruto who said the government belonged to all Kenyans.
However, recent developments that saw President Ruto incorporate members of the opposition in what he termed a “broad-based government” have proved the DP wrong and that his traps failed as Mr Odinga entered into a strategic pact with the President.
On Sunday, August 4, during an interview with Inooro TV, Mr Gachagua admitted as much saying the erstwhile political nemesis is now welcome to the government and his native Mt Kenya region. But now without a caveat “If anything fails in government neither Raila nor me should be blamed.”
The DP Gachagua said he started sensing that his traps were not working as planned when President Ruto and Mr Odinga met in Uganda hosted by President Yoweri Museveni.
“I laid traps all over State House and President Ruto initially supported my strategy. I used to check regularly whether they had caught anything but when I realized the two had started getting along well I removed them. That was when Raila gained entry,” he said, adding that Mr Odinga joined the government on the invitation of President William Ruto.
He however noted that they were ready to work with the newcomers but added that if anything goes wrong they should not blame Raila because he didn’t get into government on his own.
He went on: “The president is the head of government and I am not a co-president since my role is just to assist him. He told me he wanted to incorporate the opposition into the government and when I asked him whether he thought it was the right decision, he said he had done enough soul-searching and that he wanted to unite the country for peace. I had no option but to stand by his decision.”
It also emerged that Mr Gachagua was not consulted before the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) of which he is the deputy party leader kicked out Secretary General Cleophas Malala.
The former Kakamega Senator was ousted as the party secretary general and immediately replaced by Mombasa politician Omar Hassan, a development that took the deputy party leader Rigathi Gachagua by surprise.
The rabble-rousing politician and a close ally of Gachagua has been a subject of controversy amid power struggles in the ruling party that culminated in his ouster during a meeting about which Mr Gachagua was apparently kept in the dark
Malala was ousted during a National Executive Council meeting presided over by the party’s National Chairperson Cecil Mbarire.
DP Gachagua appeared to have no prior knowledge of the events and read a sinister motive in the ouster saying the ongoing wrangles paint the ruling party negatively.
“This is a party that has come to power in about two years whatever is happening doesn’t augur well it is a very bad image for us,” he said.
