All eyes are on Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua as he seeks to consolidate his Mt Kenya political bastion after he declared former President Uhuru Kenyatta as the region’s undisputed kingpin.....CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
On Friday, Gachagua shocked observers after making the pronouncement that could rejig political dynamics in the country. In a bid to settle the Mt Kenya kingpin debate.
Gachagua in an exclusive interview with Citizen TV journalist Sam Gituku, hinted for the umpteenth time, at burying the hatchet with the former president. The DP, while reiterating the matter, openly expressed regret over his past actions where he openly attacked and rebelled against Uhuru and the larger Kenyatta family.
“Myself and the mountain people, feel very bad that we punished Uhuru Kenyatta. We demeaned him, we told him off, we embarrassed him for telling us that Raila Odinga is a good man. And we were very brutal with him, and we hammered him,” Gachagua said.
“It has come to our knowledge that it was very unfair because his crime was to tell us that Raila Odinga is a good man. Now that Ruto has also said Raila is a good man, that is why I apologized to Uhuru Kenyatta and his family, I owed him an apology,” the DP added.
The Deputy President has recently held several rallies, particularly within Nairobi and Central Kenya, to cement his Mt. Kenya political bastion after an alleged acrimonious fallout with President William Ruto.
On Friday, Gachagua held a rally at the Marikiti market, located in the city metropolis where he threw salvos at the Head of State for failing to rein on his allies including the likes of Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah who he claimed had on several occasions undermined him in Ruto’s presence.
The second in command has as well, in the recent past, taken a swipe at President Ruto over unfulfilled development projects. However, his sentiments were seen by many Kenyans, not as an oversight, but as a deliberate slight that showed the extent of the fallout between him and the president.
Instead of healing rifts, Gachagua’s trip to the city opened up new faults between him and his boss. There were additional claims, unverified, that there was a well-orchestrated scheme to oust him from his current position.
Gachagua’s fallout with President Ruto mirrors the infamous falling-out between the current president and Uhuru in what represents the tumultuous relationship between Kenyan presidents and their deputies under the 2010 Constitution.
Nonetheless, it is not the first time that the deputy president has made attempts to call for a truce with the former president. On March 25, the second in command apologised to former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta for what he termed as bad politics during the 2022 General Elections.
In a roundtable interview with journalists from the Mt Kenya region, the DP explained that the politicians were carried away by the political activities that swept the entire country at the time.
He further noted that the political climate had led some of the politicians to lose respect for the former First Lady.
“2022 politics had become so dirty. It had reached a point, where we had lacked respect, hurling insults to Mama Ngina,” the DP told the press.
“I wouldn’t again, like the Mt Kenya community, for us to get to that point again of lacking respect for our elders. I would like to ask for forgiveness from Mama Ngina,”
Gachagua and Uhuru fell out in the buildup to the 2022 election after the fourth president decided to back Raila for president which was in stark contrast with his own political ambitions since Gachagua was backing Ruto.
At the time, Gachagua characterised Kenyatta and Odinga as embodying dynastic politics and entitlement.
The DP at one one point, came out to fault the former president for being the driving force behind his being apprehended when Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers dragged him out of his house in the middle of the night in front of his wife and kids
Ironically, at one point Gachagua was once Uhuru’s assistant.
Amidst the culminating political temperatures in the country, the deputy president hopes that a truce with his former nemesis could strengthen his hand in Mt. Kenya as more politicians from the region continue to undermine him.
If Uhuru rallies behind Gachagua, the deputy president could gain more credibility with his constituents especially since most Central Kenya residents feel most of the things Uhuru predicted while he was in office have come to pass.
In the meantime, Gachagua has to square it out with his political foes…CLICK HERE FOR MORE ARTICLE>>>
