At the height of the 2022 election campaigns, President William Ruto took the occasion to show Kenyans how his then boss, now retired President Uhuru Kenyatta, had frustrated him in what his critics saw as a political gimmick to win sympathy of voters.

Ruto, then Uhuru’s deputy, used every chance to play the victim by telling campaign rallies how he was being frustrated by the administration of the fourth President and that if he won the election, he would never disrespect his deputy.

At the time, he used the “handshake” arrangement between Uhuru and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as his political punching bag, saying the political marriage had scattered the Jubilee administration’s development plans as outlined in the party’s manifesto and culminated in him getting the cold shoulder.

Chest-thumping

The words “kiburi, matharau na kujipiga kifua itaisha… (arrogance, demeaning others and chest-thumping will one day come to a halt)” would fly around as Ruto and his running mate Rigathi Gachagua (now the Deputy President) wooed voters.

Two years  after Ruto and Gachagua were sworn into office, a fallout emerged leading to the two drifting apart even as the President dismissed his Cabinet amid protests against bad leadership and later bringing in Raila allies into the new Cabinet.

Has President Ruto deliberately decided to renege on his own campaign pledge never to sideline or undermine his deputy once he occupied the country’s most powerful office or have the prevailing political circumstances forced him to ‘eat his own words’?

It would appear Gachagua’s woes and his fallout with his boss may have began with his push for unity of the Central region and the clarion call for “one man, one vote, one shilling” which didn’t seem to go down very well with some of the President’s allies.

The DP has had to contend with situations where he would be denied use of military choppers to attend official functions and often had to hire private aircraft or travel by road.

At one point, he found himself at loggerheads with Ruto’s close associate and Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi who accused him (Gachagua) of attempting to divide Kenyans on ethnic lines.

Gachagua also has had to bear with attacks targeted at him by a section of legislators led by National Assembly Majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah who accuse him of plotting to divide Mt Kenya and thereby undermine the President.

Unity call

Ichung’wah recently led a team of MPs from Meru County in rubbishing Gachagua’s call for unity of the region, claiming this is driven by his own interests and not those of the people.

Speaking in Tigania West, Ichung’wah said the unity campaign was a plot to drive a wedge between President Ruto and the people of the region, while at the same time dismissing Gachagua’s move to reach out to Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka and other opposition leaders.

“We have no time for alliances based on political or personal interests. All we want is to see the government deliver on development projects. We should not be dragged into selfish politics. We should first deliver on the pledges we made to Kenyans, “In the two years we have not seen you launching even a single development project. But you are telling us to unite in order to intimidate the President. We have given you the permission to go and make friends and plan a government for another year,” said the MP for Kikuyu.