Riggy G offers new fodder for evaluating Ruto regime

A composed, fairly light-hearted, and well-packaged Riggy G is on the prowl. He is marauding like wind, pouncing on this regime at any given opportunity, exposing the anus of the proverbial chicken – hitting hard and revealing uncomfortable truths about a regime he once fought tooth and nail to defend.
Some of his claims are ludicrous and sound absurd, but the way he frames them – dragging the President’s name into the mix – makes them far more plausible than those who orchestrated his ouster could have imagined.
Not shocking to many Kenyans, because here is a man whose campaign rhetoric was essentially a harbinger of what we see today. Total lack of decorum and dearth of class.
But wait – was the entire Mt Kenya as a nation conned as Riggy G now suggests? If, as Gachagua claims, the leadership of this regime deceived the region, leading them down a political dead end, then what does that make Riggy G? The chief host and mobiliser, the man who welcomed UDA leadership to every church, every rally, and every marketplace.
If Mt Kenya was conned, wasn’t Riggy G the lead snake oil merchant? Just recently, before his catastrophic political downfall, he was on every podium praising the President while castigating the former prime minister as a nobody with his mtego narrative peppered by shareholding hot air.
Why would anyone want to believe his truths now yet nothing substantive has ever come out of his public utterances? Nevertheless, he has given us Kenyans lots of issues to exercise our minds on as we evaluate the regime and the political class in general.
It’s far easier to believe President Ruto’s assertion that Riggy G was incompetent and corrupt. Corruption in Kenyan politics is so deeply entrenched that a 99 per cent corruption threshold is practically an entry requirement.
You don’t have to look far, especially since the ascension of this regime to power, to find individuals with previous allegations of corruption and cases in court holding very high offices. The impeachment proceedings laid it bare endemic rot from the grassroots to the highest offices. But on corruption, it is a draw. No one in this regime campaigned on ending corruption, and the cases against top leaders suggest it was never a priority.
On incompetence, however, we have a clear winner. No amount of humour or rebranding can erase the legacy of a leader whose tenure was defined by crude rhetoric, tribal entitlement, and political hostility. His fixation on “shareholding in government” and relentless attacks on the opposition were not just divisive but strategically self-destructive.
He failed to ascend to the noble position of a national leader he had become upon taking an oath of office. His downfall was imminent from the moment he took office.
Granted, no one faults Riggy G for attacking this regime. If anything, exposing government rot is a patriotic duty. But few believe he was anything but an integral part of the rot and therefore merely doing it because he has been thrown out only makes for a circus worth enjoying and interrogating at the same time. If the UDA leadership conned Mt Kenya, Riggy G was the most enthusiastic lead actor. He not only led in the deception of the people; he actively alienated alternative voices, demonised dissent, and pushed the region into blind political loyalty.
If Riggy has experienced a Damascus moment, he owes it to the people to lay everything bare – the deals, the deceptions, the betrayals. Whether we believe him or not is secondary. There is catharsis in venting, and he seems to be venting with decorum, although with deadly precision. But then, he must be reminded: if this regime is bad for Kenya, he is among the worst of the bad lot. His political storytelling or ludicrous attacks on the President does not make him a saviour or redeemer.
There ain’t a leader he hasn’t attacked. He can turn people away from Kenya Kwanza and UDA but he will not be the one to chart their next course. Mt Kenya is rapidly detaching from the yellow fever that swept it into UDA’s grip, and Riggy’s credibility as a guidepost is non-existent.
— The writer is a media studies Researcher