Ichung’wah: How Gachagua orchestrated his own impeachment
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwa, during a Thanksgiving service held at Koilel Primary School in Uasin Gishu County on October 09, 2022.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah has defended President William Ruto over the impeachment of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua as well as Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro's woes ahead of the Head of State’s Mt Kenya tour.
The President begins his Mount Kenya visit on Tuesday, April 1.
Mr Ichung’wah said Mr Gachagua stubbornly refused to heed cautionary warnings and went ahead to prepare his own grounds for impeachment, while Mr Nyoro removed himself as chairperson of the National Assembly's Budget and Appropriations Committee.
“We do not fight Ndindi Nyoro, but there was nothing special about his committee... It was among those that, as per Standing Orders, had served a maximum of two years and had to be reconstituted. He was aware of the same,” he said.
He added, “I don’t know how National Assembly committees are constituted and reconstituted. That is the work of the whips. I don’t even know who belongs where... All that Mr Nyoro was required to do was re-contest his position, get a proposer and a seconder, and convince half of the members to vote him back... President Ruto had no say.”
About Gachagua’s woes, Mr Ichung’wah said, “I had severally told him to stop fighting Mt Kenya legislators, some of them being women who would seek consolation in my office while crying.”
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
As tensions escalated, Mr Ichung’wah said, the Gachagua troubles even spilled over to the National Treasury, where former CS Njuguna Ndung’u ran to the President for protection under pressure from the former DP to irregularly allocate his office an illegal confidential vote.
Mr Ichung’wah, while speaking on Kogi’s Corner TV on Saturday night, added: “As tensions escalated, I became the most unpopular Mt Kenya leader since I kept on opposing those who wanted to table an impeachment motion against Gachagua.”
'Ruto protection'
The Kikuyu MP said, “The emotions went all the way to the President, who was also helping me protect Mr Gachagua... The President refused that the DP be impeached in June and again in August 2024 before we all lost the battle of protecting Gachagua from himself.”
Political analysts say the relationship between President William Ruto and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has been irreparably damaged by mistrust and political manoeuvring, regardless of the outcome of the impeachment.
Mr Ichung’wah said Mr Gachagua cannot blame anyone for his impeachment, as he was the author of his own troubles. “In short, he laid the red carpet for his own political shame.”
This came as Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri on Saturday said Mr Gachagua was 'good at bullying others' and later coming out to play victim, promising that “by June this year we will have made him irrelevant in the Mt Kenya region.”
“Gachagua was lucky that he was serving under a considerate President Ruto. The things he was doing in office, ranging from declaring within the presidency that he was an equal partner in the national leadership to insulting junior officers, were enough to kick him out within the first three months,” he added.
He said, “A man who failed to sustain himself in the second most powerful office cannot be the one to defeat us in 2027.”
Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri.
Mr Kiunjuri said all Mt Kenya MPs who were victims of Gachagua’s bullying were ready to reconcile, but “the DP and his advisors had reached a point where they really felt they were untouchable... that they had this president in a corner owing to the Mountain's 4 million votes.”
Mr Kiunjuri added, “With time, I know our parliamentary spokesman Mr Ichung’wah will spill some of the beans, and what he will leave out I will personally come and spill... No one is choosing to confront Gachagua, but he should be exposed for what he is.”
Hours later, Mr Ichung’wah, in one of those rare moments where he agrees to be interviewed by local media since becoming Majority Leader, was on air making new disclosures about the grand fallout between Dr Ruto and Mr Gachagua.
“Mr Gachagua’s issues are complex. I had tried to convince him to go easy on his many wars, especially with our Mt Kenya MPs. He was particularly very hard on Kiharu’s Ndindi Nyoro. Gachagua knows I had tried to create peace between him and our MPs,” he said.
He added that instead of Mr Gachagua shaping up, he chose the shipping-out route through impeachment.
“He was very offensive, particularly to those who were on Mr Nyoro’s side. He thought Mr Nyoro wanted to be bigger than he was. He wanted a Mt Kenya leadership troop that was loyal to him, following him everywhere, including to traditional dances. He didn’t want our leaders visiting other regions or consulting other leaders,” Mr Ichung’wah charged.
Also Read: After Gachagua ouster, which way Mt Kenya?
Instead of heeding, Mr Ichung’wah added, Mr Gachagua went ahead to create more online hate campaigns in a very crude scheme to make his office look great.
'Sponsored bloggers'
“I passionately told Gachagua to make friends with MPs... He refused. He sponsored bloggers who were uplifting his spouse and demeaning the First Lady... The same bloggers would uplift Gachagua and insult Ruto. I confronted him with the same suspicion, and he refuted. He dismissed those bloggers as mad,” he said.
Mr Ichung’wah said he advised Mr Gachagua to personally go to a commissioned ICT hub and condemn irresponsible blogging as well as caution those who were fighting the President and the First Lady in his name.
“Sadly, Mr Gachagua refused. I told him the end would be bad. He said it was Dennis Itumbi who was creating a wedge between him and the President. I told him Itumbi is a small guy. I reminded him he was a big man, both in age and position, to be seen fighting with MPs and Itumbi, as well as presiding over nonsensical blogging,” he said.
'MPs threatened president'
Mr Ichung’wah said things became so heated for the DP that MPs were literally threatening the President with impeachment if he continued defending his deputy.
“As things moved from bad to worse, Gachagua switched off his phone, disappeared completely from the public limelight, and emerged days later saying he had gone to the forest to pray for us,” he said.
Mr Ichung’wah said, “The DP came out of the forest the day the President was departing for the USA state visit... He came directly from the forest to the airport. I asked him where he had been. He said he was in the forest praying. I asked him whether the churches had closed and why he wasn’t inviting us to also pray with him... He waved me off.”
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
But Mr Gachagua wanted to briefly chat with the President about his troubles, Ichung’wah said.
“Owing to time limitations, the President briefed the then Interior CS Prof Kithure Kindiki, together with the then Transport CS Mr Kipchumba Murkomen, to hear Gachagua and help him,” Ichung’wah said.
But Mr Gachagua, who believed he could only speak directly to the President, refused to meet the two junior officers.
“Prof Kindiki and Mr Murkomen drove to his Karen residence and announced to the security that they were there to see the DP. The GSU officer heading the DP’s security told Kindiki and Murkomen that Gachagua had told him to tell them he was not in, though he was there,” Mr Ichung’wah revealed.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah. Mr Ichung’wah dismissed the opposition’s claims on the VAT increase, saying the government has cushioned Kenyans through the reduction of the Import Declaration Fee from 3.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent of the customs value of imported goods and Railway Development Levy from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.
Mr Gachagua was to later call Kindiki to apologize, saying “he was in a family meeting.” He later met Kindiki without Mr Murkomen present, allegedly trying to indoctrinate him into tribal cocoon politics.
Mr Ichung’wah said the President kept getting feedback about how his Deputy was refusing to meet the “firefighters” he had dispatched to help him survive the storm.
“When we returned from America, the President told me and the then Defence Minister Aden Duale to meet Gachagua and iron things out. Mr Gachagua refused to meet us. Instead, he escalated his wars with MPs and even the National Treasury,” he said.
He added, “It was when he branded all of us who were not following him to his public rallies as traitors, sellouts, and collaborators that fury heightened... I confronted him because I also felt insulted.”
Mr Ichung’wah said, “He went a notch higher and issued a deadline of December 31, 2024, that all of us in Mt Kenya become his submissive disciples or he orders our voters never to vote for us in 2027.”
To make matters worse, Prof Ndung’u, the National Treasury CS, and his PS went to the President and reported that they were under pressure from the DP to wire Sh250 million additional budget to the Office of the Deputy President, Ichung’wah revealed.
“The report was that he was using threats, saying he was an equal partner in the government. I was personally told to speak to him. I reminded him that his office had suspiciously consumed Sh750 million of confidential vote,” he said.
Mr Ichung’wah said, “Mr Gachagua asked me to help him reinstate the confidential vote funding, and I refused.”
Meanwhile, Mt Kenya MPs had now reached their breaking point and were demanding that an impeachment motion be prepared—where the President had to choose between accepting Mr Gachagua’s ouster or facing rebellion at State House.
“The President had tried his best. God is his witness. Mr Gachagua impeached himself. We tried our level best to save him, but the damage he had inflicted on his position was too much, and he had to go,” Mr Ichung’wah said.
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