Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is caught up in a supremacy battle in his Central Kenya backyard with key Kenya Kwanza leaders from the region appearing to be reading from a different script.

National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwah, Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria, Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro and former Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri have in the recent past contradicted Deputy President while some have been keeping away from his events.

Over the last two months, Gachagua and Kuria have been engaged in a war of words that is now being linked to the latter’s transfer from the high profile Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry to the Ministry of Public Service, Performance and Delivery Management.

The first ministry gave Kuria opportunities to travel abroad and interact with global business leaders while the latter requires him to supervise the performance of a largely lethargic civil service bureaucracy.

Kuria posted the DP’s photo on his Twitter handle after he was reshuffled, in what was a veiled message about who was responsible for his woes.

Kuria, who had christened himself njamba ya ruriri (community defender) during the last campaigns, has had many differences with Gachagua.

Before the Cabinet reshuffle, Gachagua and Kuria were caught up in a public spat over high fuel prices announced by the government on September 14.

In response to remarks by Kuria advising people complaining about high fuel prices to drill their own oil wells, Gachagua warned public officials against making insensitive statements.

Kuria hit back, describing his senior as ‘insecure’ on social media. It was hot on the heels of the altercation that President Ruto made a surprise Cabinet reshuffle that saw some of Gachagua’s perceived critics, Kuria included, being given less glamorous Cabinet posts.

Away from the CS, Ichung’wah and Nyoro, who are much younger than the Vice President, have also been seeking to position themselves as alternative Mt Kenya leaders even as the DP has been going out of his way to assert himself as the region’s kingpin.

For the last one month, Gachagua has made forays to various parts of Mt Kenya, holding meetings as he moves to assert his authority and cement his position as President William Ruto’s right hand man and point man. A number of leaders from the region, among them Ichung’wah and Nyoro and some MPs have been conspicuously absent from some of the rallies that Gachagua has been addressing.

The tours, which he has also used to campaign against consumption of illicit alcohol, culminated last week with Gachagua christening himself the de facto leader of Mt Kenya, promising to deliver a resounding voter turn-out in favour of the President come 2027.

“There’s no division in the mountain,” he said. “The mountain has one leader, selected and anointed by God… Rigathi Gachagua… and voted in by 7.2 million Kenyans,” he declared.

Political undercurrents

The country’s second-in-command added that he was consolidating the unity of Mt Kenya, a process he said will see him reach out to everybody, including retired President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“When the time comes and our spirit is calm, we will talk again. Even with those in the opposition, we are not at war. I am consolidating the house,” he said.

Interestingly, Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga also called a press conference recently to announce that he and other local leaders were firmly behind Gachagua, prompting observers to query why they would need to stand behind Gachagua unless there were political undercurrents at play. Gachagua’s critics have accused him of patronising the President and presenting himself as the man who delivered the Mt Kenya votes for Kenya Kwanza.

In a social media video, Ngunjiri criticised Gachagua over his claims that the Kenya Kwanza administration had shareholders and that those who have been seeking to join the government lately should not reap as much as those who have been there from the start.

“Every Kenyan is shareholder. I encourage the President to unite the whole country and fight tribalism by ensuring that public appointments reflect the face of Kenya,” Ngunjiri said.

Ngunjiri also said Gachagua should not create the impression that he delivered Mt Kenya to support President Ruto. According to him, Ruto courted the Mountain himself. “Nobody single-handedly carried the people of Mt Kenya to Ruto. The people of Central Kenya supported Ruto because he actively and directly engaged them. I and Ndindi Nyoro cried for Riggy G to be nominated as the Deputy President. We had no problem with Kithure Kindiki. Our desire was to lock the Mt Kenya vote,” he said in a double-edged statement that at once revealed his misgivings about Gachagua on one hand, and what he achieved on the other.

Some political observers have opined that Gachagua is moving fast to consolidate his grip on Mt Kenya out of fear of a possible handshake between President Ruto and Azimio leader Raila Odinga in case the National Dialogue Committee makes that recommendation.

According to political analyst Herman Manyora, Gachagua has every reason to be worried about a possible handshake deal. Manyora’s comments came on the heels of Ruto’s statement during his four-day development tour of Luo-Nyanza, in which he asserted that Raila owes him a political debt in 2027.

“That kind of thing that played out (the reception the President received) could not easily have played out if Raila had not given his nod. Something has taken place and I have no doubt that the casualties will be Kalonzo Musyoka and Rigathi Gachagua,” Manyora opined.

For Ichung’wa, his proponents believe that having been elected to Parliament in 2013 and by virtue of his position as Leader of Majority in the National Assembly, he is primed to become the region’s spokesman, although the current Attorney-General, Justin Muturi, was installed as the region’s spokesman last year.

“He is the longest serving MP from Mt Kenya region, which gives him an advantage over the others,” an MP from Central who declined to be named told the People Daily yesterday. Gachagua was a first time MP when Ruto, then Deputy President, settled on him as his running mate, a move that rattled Kindiki and others who had angled for him.

Low profile

It was not lost on observers that early this year, Nyoro caused political ripples in Mt Kenya when he assembled opinion leaders from Eastern, Central, Rift Valley and Eastern to his Kiharu home where they declared him the most “ideal successor” to Ruto.

Nyoro, though still close to the President, has in recent months taken a low profile, in part to avoid a confrontation with the elder and senior Gachagua. In the recent past, the DP has held three closed-door meetings with elected leaders from Mt Kenya, in which both Nyoro and Ichung’wah were absent. Nyoro is from Murang’a and Ichung’wah is from Kiambu. Gachagua hails from Nyeri.

On September 30, Gachagua held a meeting at his Karen residence with some leaders from the region, as a group of 48 legislators held a parallel one in Thika. Two days later, the DP was in Meru where he threatened to name leaders who did not support his bid to unite the region.

“If I find that any leader from this region is being used to divide us, I will name and shame him or her during the day so that our people may understand who is for the region and who is not,” Gachagua said. “We are in agreement with all the leaders and I told them that even Uhuru is one of us.

We were opponents, but elections are now behind us. Our retired president deserves respect and no one should harass him,” Gachagua explained later in an interview with a local vernacular radio station.
Relationship between Gachagua and the retired president had been frosty, but in the last two weeks, both the DP and the President appear to have embarked on a path of rapprochement with Uhuru, who still wields political clout in the region.

Their final game plan is expected to become clearer once the bi-partisan team sitting in Bomas makes its recommendations. It is not lost on political observers that Gachagua has been highly critical of the team, whose co-chair is Ichung’wah