President William Ruto (left) and his ex-deputy Rigathi Gachagua.
It was a twin gamble when President William Ruto sponsored a bid to impeach his deputy Rigathi Gachagua who in turn refused to take the soft landing of resigning and instead opted to confront his accusers.
Over a month after Mr Gachagua was removed from office and replaced with Prof Kithure Kindiki as deputy president, there has been a notable change of political fortunes for the two protagonists.
President Ruto has stabilised his government by coopting opposition leader Raila Odinga’s side, a collaboration that allows him to court with ease opposition zones where he is frequently lately.
But his ouster of Mr Gachagua has backfired in Mt Kenya, where the president, his deputy, and their local allies are increasingly facing a hostile reception.
The region is rallying around Mr Gachagua who, however, has to endure the humiliation that comes with taking on the state machinery while outside power.
But why did Mr Gachagua refuse to resign, risking impeachment on October 17 that could undermine his political career unless overturned by the courts?
President's push
On November 25, 2024, Mr Gachagua’s private secretary Mr Munene wa Mumbi told Nation.Africa how on October 7-- a day before the National Assembly voted to impeach the then deputy president—the president had attempted to push him to resign.
"He (President) called the boss (Gachagua) asking him to cease daring him into a fight but instead resign and walk home as peacefully as he had come into government.
"He promised to let him have his security and benefits. He had told him that he was ready to pull all the stops to see him out of government," Mr Munene recalled Mr Gachagua recounting the conversation with his boss.
Mr Gachagua's gamble is emerging to have been a risky calculation that if he allowed himself to walk the road of the cross, his people would see the persecution and sympathise with him.
"It worked...After the sympathies, followed love. What we are not sure of is how this love will help Mr Gachagua should he fail to get court clearance to contest in 2027," explained political analyst and scholar Prof Peter Kagwanja.
'Not a coward'
On the contrary, Mr Gachagua's aide Mr Ngunjiri Wambugu last Tuesday told Kogi's Corner TV, "resigning would have exposed Mr Gachagua to the tag of cowardice which Mt Kenya voters loath.”
Had Mr Gachagua resigned, he added, it would have given his accusers a weapon to charge that the guilty are afraid.
Further, he said that the impeachment process was bound to expose the president's loyalists for what they were hence helping Mt Kenya region know the type of leaders it had.
It now emerges that the decision by Mr Gachagua to face the process of impeachment head-on instead of resigning was a gamble that was aimed at creating a wave of dissent in Mt Kenya.
"We knew that the president was determined to kick out Mr Gachagua from government...It had been decided and our intelligence had tipped us so. We sat down and offered our advise and decided facing the impeachment was more rewarding than facing the Head of State head-on in 2027," said Mr Gachagua's ally in Murang'a Mr Mwangi Kifeeti.
Mr Kifeeti said the accusations that had been leveled against Mr Gachagua looked like good political missiles that could build him if indeed impeached "and it has turned out to be so".
'Weak accusations'
Murang'a Senator Mr Joe Nyutu also argued the impeachment was packaged in such a way that the accusations by Kibwezi West MP Mr Mwengi Mutuse looked weak but naively fronted to build Gachagua if he faced them.
"Of great interest were the accusations that Mr Gachagua had refused to support the eviction of tenants and traders...there was the accusation of insubordination and also that he was defending the Mountain too much," Mr Nyutu said.
Mr Nyutu added that "a wave of dissent against the President had grown stronger since June when Gen Z were building protest against Finance Bill 2024 and the impeachment politics was tuned to endear Mr Gachagua to the protestors whom he had defended".
Nyandarua Senator Mr John Methu has since summarised the reasons that President Ruto's allies had leveled against Mr Gachagua leading to the impeachment.
"The president personally told me that Mr Gachagua had refused to grow into a national leader, making the country look as if it had a national president but with a regional deputy president," Mr Methu told Kameme FM on Monday.
On June 26, a day after the Gen Z protesters had raided the National Assembly, President Ruto addressed the nation and dismissed the uprising as the work of treasonous criminals who he ordered cracked down.
On November 25, when the former deputy president complained about the State fully withdrawing his security, his aides and an official in Interior ministry revealed pressure to have him stop his political activities.
According to Mr Munene, the State demanded Mr Gachagua cease political activities so as to have his security back. But Mr Munene said Mr Gachagua is determined not to succumb to blackmail.
And it is auditing time now where evidence of who gambled right is all over, the move, arguably, making the president unpopular in Mt Kenya and Mr Gachagua’s support growing.
Nyeri governor Mr Mutahi Kahiga argued that "what is happening in Mt Kenya is based on anger, a situation that can be profitable or detrimental to the future wellbeing of the region".
Nyeri governor Mr Mutahi Kahiga.
Prof Kagwanja said "Mr Gachagua is currently herding a restless mountain mostly driven by sympathies, anger and disillusionment.” “The net effect being a region with no clear-cut agenda and drive for or against the government," he added.
Prof Kagwanja admitted that the impeachment has battered the government in the region and spruced up Mr Gachagua hence angling the area for a big confrontation against President Ruto.
"This is the gamble that President Ruto clearly took and used his popularity in Mt Kenya as the bet...He felt that by throwing Gachagua under the bus and replacing him with Mr Kindiki, his 2022's 87 rating percent would hit the roofs," said Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) don Mr Charles Mwangi.
Mr Mwangi reckoned that going by unfolding events in public domain showing how the president and his deputy are being frowned upon in the region, President Ruto's gamble might have backfired.
“Of interest is how the president has been receiving hostile reception in Nakuru, Embu and Murang'a counties where in an emerging new but worrying culture, mourners and brethren are the ones so far who have jeered at the duo.
"If you can be booed inside a church and in a burial ceremony--the two top most solemn public assemblies in our culture--then there is a big problem with you...it is the lowest you can score in any community," observed Kiambu Senator Mr Karungo Thang'wa.
Kiambu Senator Karungo wa Thang'wa.
That President Ruto's ratings in the region now requires a near miracle to be reworked to substantial effect for his 2027 reelection bid is not in dispute, but how Gachagua's gamble turned out is interesting to political pundits.
"It is not in doubt that this impeachment fiasco has made Gachagua a man of the moment in his own backyard where unless something major changes, all wishing to bag area votes must go through him," said political analyst Prof Harman Manyora.
However, Majority Leader Mr Kimani Ichung'wa insisted that Mr Gachagua's drive remains a choice of selfishness that has opted to use Mt Kenya numbers for personal gain, leading area people into rebellion without a cause and which uses the people in risky sympathy seeking violent stunts.
Mr Ichung'wa insisted that "the case in which Mr Gachagua reported to have been attacked last Thursday in Limuru constituency was a self-inflicted sympathy seeking gimmick...a very unfortunate thing to do by placing innocent people in the line of violence".
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah.
President Ruto's ruling party United Democratic Alliance (UDA) chair Ms Cecily Mbarire said "we are now being forced to hate and demean the government instead of lobbying it for the development agenda that can transform the fortunes of our people".
The Embu County governor said "that is an unacceptable gamble especially that it is being championed by politicians from developed regions...importing bad manners of talking down the president while visiting the least developed region of say, Embu county".
Ironically, Dr Ruto was in the run to 2022 General Election the most loved politician in the region where he ended up scooping nearly all the votes in the region, leaving a partly 13 percent to all the other competitors to share.
The other competitors were Mr Raila Odinga who was being backed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, Mwaura Waihiga and George Wajackoyah.
On the other hand, even when Mr Gachagua was picked as Dr Ruto's running mate, he was still rated as an average politician who residents were not sure whether he was good for them.
Word has it that Mr Gachagua was not the region's favourite to deputise Dr Ruto. Instead, reports suggested the then Tharaka Nithi Senator Prof Kithure Kindiki was the considered favourite.
But Mr Gachagua's gamble not to resign has come with a huge risk.
As the impeachment motion headed to the National Assembly, Mr Gachagua declared that "those who are being sent to me with silly proposals that I resign...(Laughing off)...who to resign? I will walk through the whole process".
2027 plans
While Mr Gachagua maintained that he was optimistic that the charges would collapse, he was subsequently impeached and removed from office.
A race to save his position in courts also flopped in a hurried process that eventually saw Prof Kindiki sworn in as deputy president.
As things stand, Mr Gachagua risks getting barred from contesting any position in 2027 but at the same time remains so far, the man with the password to the biggest single voting block of Mt Kenya.
While UDA Secretary General Mr Omar Hassan insisted that Mr Gachagua remains an isolationist, Makueni Senator Mr Dan Maanzo argued "the impeachment process against the former DP was a senseless circus that came as a blessing to many political actors".
Mr Maanzo said, "today, the man who was hounded out of office on baseless grounds of being tribal has ended up being the most passionate about integration of tribes and regions together with people there in".
He said it was a wise move for Mr Gachagua not to have resigned adding that "there comes a time when a man must bite the bullet for the sake of the broader good and so far his facing his accusers face to face has served to unite the country better against the reigning misrule".
