By Anderson Ojwang
The impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua could be fast waking up to the reality of the past when he was the country’s second most senior person in the administrative pecking orders.
The reality could be dawning on the former deputy president on his actions and reactions to various emerging issues when he was in the office and now is blaming his boss, President William Ruto.
During his tenure in the office of Deputy President, Rigathi rubbed both leaders and the public on the wrong side and now he is claiming that his actions and reactions were dictated and directed by his former boss.
On Sunday, when he spoke in Laikipia Rigathi claimed that President Ruto was the one instructing MPs on what to say and do in public.
“If you see MPs speak, just know Ruto has sent them. I was with him. He could write for me what to say.
He wrote to me what to say on various occasions and on the third occasion, I realized this man was not right. You remember how I used to speak and talk and then suddenly I changed.
You know he sits there, he has a pen and a paper, writes to you what to say. I realized that the president was setting me up with Kenyans.
For instance, the issue of shareholdings, that made be to be impeached. He is the one who told me to traverse the country and tell people about shareholding.
So one day he goes out and says he was speaking about shareholding as primitive and retrogressive yet he is the one who told me to say that.
He again told me that the old man of Kitandawili (former Prime minister Raila Odinga) that there will be no day, we will allow him to come close to us.
After I had said that on various occasions, I only saw Ruto with Uganda President Yoweri Museveni and Raila grazing cows in Uganda.
I realized that if I continued listening and following what he said, I would be lost.
He continued to write for me what to say. I would keep the paper in my coat pocket and would speak about different issues and not what he wrote for me.
All these MPs you see speak. He is the one who writes for them what to say. When that MP from Western says that Mt Kenya will be isolated. That is not the MP speaking, that is William Ruto. In Jesus’ name, let him be defeated.
I want to promise you, President William Ruto, here today in Laikipia, that you will not succeed in isolating the people of Mt Kenya from the rest of Kenyans.
I want to promise you William Ruto, you will not succeed in dividing Mt Kenya east and west, it will not happen.
I want to promise you William Ruto you will not kick the people of Mt Kenya out of the government,” he said.
Rigathi was impeached for among other reasons promoting tribalism, undermining the unity of the country, and promoting shareholding of the government among others.
Rigathi said he had placed trappers in specific corners of the State House to snare former Prime Minister Raila Odinga from gaining access to the president.
He said he had informers who would call him should Raila be spotted in State House or near the president.
However, Ruto and Raila entered into a political handshake that birthed the broad-based government and currently the bromance between the two leaders is so telling.
Former Nyakach MP Ochieng Daima said Rigathi was being haunted by his past actions and reactions and was looking for a soft place to lay the blame.
“I really do not understand the claims by Rigathi that President Ruto dictated and directed to him on what to say in the public. Is Rigathi an infant who was being trained in speech? This is a total lie. Let him carry his own cross,” he said.
Ochieng said Rigathi was on a mission to be the leader of Mt Kenya and that was why he was concocting lies and using Ruto as his scapegoat and campaign tool.
He said Rigathi should accept his past and live in peace with the deeds instead of blame game.
“Let Rigathi speak the truth as a Christian. He like lying and playing victim to the public gallery. We have not forgotten his hatred for some communities.” he said.
Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma wrote in X handle “Our Mt Kenya brothers took oath back in 1969 that presidency would never go beyond Mt Kenya, For this reason, whenever the presidency goes to a person outside Mt Kenya, they frustrate, create anarchy and fuel civil unrest,”
