Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga on Thursday said Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua ’s self-imposed exile at his Mathira home in May followed "political persecution", even as he warned the president’s camp that Mt Kenya still has options.
Mr Kahiga regretted Mr Gachagua was being hounded in the same manner President William Ruto was harassed during his tenure as a deputy to his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta.
He questioned the President’s commitment to protecting his deputy from what he termed as "political persecution" as he promised during his inauguration, adding that the doubts are “making us wonder what happened to the nice president that we voted for in 2022.” The second term governor said Mt Kenya is learning the hard way the folly of trusting Dr Ruto without a written agreement prior to the elections and formation of Kenya Kwanza government.
“We did not go to Ruto as a team, all our senior guys in his government walked to him individually. We have never had cohesion in this government as Mt Kenya,” he said.
“I had suggested to Mr Gachagua that we push for a written pact with the president or even end our marriage. He shot down the suggestion saying that he believed that things would get better. He said that we remain in the president’s UDA party,” Mr Kahiga added.
However, the governor cautioned that Mt Kenya has options saying “we have many Mt Kenya region political parties.”
“The President knows how he decamped from Jubilee when the going got tough. We have choices,” Mr Kahiga said, referring to Dr Ruto’s formation of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) while preparing his exit from the ruling party ahead of 2022 elections.
He claimed DP Gachagua has the support of all Mt Kenya governors “and I speak as their chairman in all the 10 counties.”
The governor said the political persecutions — which he pinned on the President’s associates — took a toll on DP Gachagua to the point that he had to exit the public limelight to go for meditation.
“The deputy president had abruptly gone missing and no one appeared to know where he was. It was alarming since he was not even picking calls. I personally led efforts to trace him since the issues that were happening around him were sensitive. Some juniors in government had started disparaging him, he was being denied military choppers’ transport, there were schemes all over around him and his disappearance could not be taken lightly,” he said.
Mr Gachagua would on May 21 emerge after a week of public absence to declare that he had been deep in Mt Kenya forest fasting and praying.
Yesterday, Mr Kahiga said when he found him in his Mathira home, he was “in a reflective mood”.
He claimed that getting access to Mr Gachagua was not easy “since I had to manoeuver through a web of his aides that included his security, assistants and family members.”
When he arrived at Gachagua’s homestead, the governor explained, he found “a distraught man, all alone in his house and in our discussions that ensued, I came face-to-face with the gravity of his situation.”
“It was after we talked over the issue that he felt better and came out of his self-imposed political Siberia,” he added.
He claimed the persecution has escalated to a point that “the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is clearly seen advancing an impeachment vendetta against the DP.”
The NIS leadership, he claimed, is upset with Mr Gachugua’s June 26 national address from Mombasa where he blasted it for alleged dereliction of duty “by failing to issue Intel about the building up of public anger against the Finance Bill 2024 that resulted in the Gen Zs protests that were to last for a month starting June 25.”
“The impeachment politics you are hearing being planned against Gachagua is revenge by the NIS,” he alleged.
DP Rigathi's full speech on the protests, NIS
Mr Kahiga alleged the impeachment schemes are to blame for violent riots that have rocked Gachagua’s hometown of Karatina for the past one month just to make him look militant.
Mr Kahiga criticised Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri over his remarks about politicians sponsoring protesters.
“I want Kiunjuri to give real logistics of transporting 25,000 hooligans to Nairobi from corners of Mt Kenya…How the number can be transported and in how many lorries?”
