Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua attending a church service at PCEA Mwiki on April 6, 2025.
President William Ruto's camp has gone for former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, attacking him for at least 15 statements he has made since being removed from office in October 2024 that they point out to be contradictions of his public positions when he was in office.
"One need not campaign against Gachagua. Just give him a microphone in a public space with a crowd present, and Gachagua will immediately start demolishing himself,” says Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, a close ally of Dr Ruto, the Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP) leader.
Most Mt Kenya elected leaders are ‘fools’
Mr Gachagua, in his recent public appearances as well as in interviews on vernacular media stations, has been insisting that the elected leaders in the region who voted to impeach him as Deputy President in October last year are fools, clashing with the people’s representatives, who point out that he was the one who campaigned for them.
“Gachagua is the man who was campaigning for the same leaders in 2022… Is he not the one, then, who sponsored the fools to be elected, at the time praising them as visionary?” Mathira MP Mr Eric Wamumbi asks.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula had another poignant piece of advice for Mr Gachagua.
“You are young politically. You were an MP for one term and a Deputy President for just two years. And now you are here, speaking like a lion whose meat has been snatched from its mouth, with so much bravado. You cannot run the politics of one region - let alone Kenya - by anger,” Mr Wetang’ula said in Busia on Saturday.
We in Mt Kenya are in the ditch because of Mt Kenya traitors
Information Technology Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo disputes this, saying Mr Gachagua is the one in the ditch, since he is the one who was impeached.
“Gachagua has been trying hard to make the impeachment a community issue.”
Further, Mr Gachagua has been seeking forgiveness from Mt Kenya voters, saying: “I contributed to this mess by convincing you to vote for Dr Ruto in 2022.”
I apologise for bringing Ruto to you
Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri believes that Gachagua is unsure of his position, “since at the same time he is blaming former President Uhuru Kenyatta for letting Dr Ruto infiltrate Mt Kenya.” In an interview on Kameme TV on 16 June 2025, Mr Gachagua said: “I will not repeat the mistake of Mr Kenyatta, who gave Dr Ruto too much freedom to campaign and endear himself in Mt Kenya starting in 2013.”
The DCP is the Mountain party; others are Ruto’s wheelbarrows
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua poses for a photograph after unveiling his new political outfit, the Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP), at the party headquarters in the Lavington, Nairobi, on May 15, 2025.
This assertion by Mr Gachagua is raising eyebrows, given that he recently partnered with parties such as the Party of National Unity, the People’s Liberation Party, and the Democratic Party.
“We are afraid that Gachagua is not sincere in the formation of an honest alliance. He is pretending to embrace fringe parties, but with a predetermined mind that his DCP should swallow them,” says Jubilee Party Secretary-General Mr Jeremiah Kioni. However, in the Kameme TV interview, Mr Gachagua insisted that political parties would have to compete for support and that he is marketing his DCP.
I'm not tribal
Yet, Mr Kiunjuri says Mr Gachagua is an accomplished tribalist and regionalist “who is going around profiling people by their tribes and settlements.”
“Gachagua shamelessly goes around putting Bantus, whom he refers to as his cousins, against the rest of the tribes.”
We will bring you one candidate to take Ruto head-on
Mr Gachagua, besides saying he is committed to a sustained anti-President Ruto alliance by partnering with Wiper Party leader Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, DAP–Kenya party boss Mr Eugene Wamalwa, former Interior CS Dr Fred Matiang’i, and Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya, has also been going around saying he will contest the presidency. Mr Kioni argues that Mr Gachagua makes it difficult for anyone to believe in his honesty and commitment to the cause of removing President Ruto from office using the 2027 vote.
But “Mr Gachagua is only structuring his politics by consolidating the Mountain. His declared presidential ambition should be read as strategic angling ahead of all his allies coming together in December 2026 to endorse one presidential flag bearer,” says Mukurweini MP Mr John Kaguchia.
We will get a formula
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua (centre) with other political leaders when he hosted them at his Wamunyoro home in Nyeri County on May 4, 2025.
However, Mr Gachagua has openly shown bias towards Mr Musyoka. In a recent meeting at Mr Musyoka’s home, Mr Gachagua declared: “Mr Musyoka should mobilise 4 million voters and I will pool together my 8 million votes... We will ensure Mr Musyoka and the Akamba community swim in the glory that both President Ruto and Raila Odinga have been denying him.”
Mt Kenya people should go to Ruto and eat his money as you listen to his lies
Yet, according to Mt Kenya gospel artist Mr Ngaruiya Junior, “Gachagua has been urging our fans to boycott our music, unsubscribe from our online channels, and bar owners to cease contracting us for entertainment services if we are seen visiting State House or Deputy President Prof Kithure Kindiki’s Karen official residence.”
Mr Junior argues: “What is so unbecoming about us visiting the two venues to gain benefits, compared to Mr Gachagua’s directive that all should freely seek those benefits?” However, under pressure from several entertainment industry players, Mr Gachagua was, on June 16, 2025, to review his directive towards reconciliation.
“There is no way our Mountain artists can be seen to be partnering with those planning evil things against us, as well as showing open contempt for us as a region and a people,” Mr Gachagua said. He urged Mt Kenya people to “forgive those who have already been seen visiting Dr Ruto and Prof Kindiki... if they promise not to repeat the mistake again.”
Ruto is giving us beans and rice
Mr Gachagua has made reference to MP Sudi’s recent Sh145 million empowerment programme, where he distributed public service vehicles, posho mills, power saws, motorbikes, among other items, to the economically marginalised. Mr Gachagua has implied that Mt Kenya leaders receive rice and beans from President Ruto to be delivered as empowerment goods.
“When President Ruto’s backyard is experiencing roaring engines from the machines given, our Mt Kenya has roaring tummies owing to eating relief rice and beans,” Mr Gachagua said.
However, when he was Deputy President, Mr Gachagua had, on several occasions, appeared in public issuing assorted cereals to the same Mt Kenya people.
“He is on record even treating people to a dish of rice at Sagana State Lodge, as well as going around the grassroots giving out beans... It is okay when he does it but not okay when done by someone else,” says Murang’a Woman Representative Betty Maina.
Ruto cheated us with the Bible
While Mr Gachagua continues to campaign against President Ruto on the grounds that he used the pulpit to infiltrate Mt Kenya, Mr Gachagua is repeating the same strategy to endear himself to the Mt Kenya people as their kingpin.
“For him, it is even worse because he too is using the pulpit, going so far as to have secular songs in praise of him played before launching into heavily demeaning attacks against those he sees as competitors to his political cause,” says Gatundu North MP Elijah Kururia.
Gachagua complaining about withdrawal of his own security
Yet, when Mr Gachagua was Deputy President, he was a vocal supporter of the withdrawal of security from Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance bigwigs who were demanding post-election justice, believing their victory had been stolen.
“Gachagua even at one time confessed that no elected leaders supporting the protests would be accorded State security or firearms... It is payback time, Mr Gachagua,” says Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa.
Complaining about police brutality on protesters
While Mr Gachagua has of late become a key voice against police brutality, when he was Deputy President, he used to order crackdowns against Azimio protesters.
“The President happened to travel out of the country and I was left in charge. I ensured, together with our police officers, that the protesters were dealt with and their movements restricted to only the outside of the city centre,” he said at the time.
Money in the coffers when Kenya Kwanza took over in 2022
During President Ruto’s swearing-in ceremony on 13 September 2022, Mr Gachagua insisted that the coffers were empty, claiming the outgoing regime had stolen everything.
“Now outside government, Mr Gachagua keeps on revising his earlier statements for convenience, to serve his political ambitions,” says Mogotio MP Mr Reuben Kiborek.
On insulting former president Uhuru Kenyatta
Mr Gachagua made these remarks recently when he transformed his Wamunyoro political centre into an interdenominational worship venue. He expressed anger that President Ruto’s loyalists were increasingly resorting to demeaning language against Mr Kenyatta, owing to his support for the Gen Z agitation.
“This is the very same Gachagua who had earlier dismissed Mr Kenyatta as a good-for-nothing alcoholic whom he had removed from the ditch to make him president,” says Democratic Congress youth leader Ms Gladys Njoroge.
Ms Njoroge, however, notes: “Gachagua has since apologised to the former Head of State, but whether the olive branch has been accepted is still something not yet made public.”
Murang’a Woman Rep Ms Betty Maina recently told Kogi’s Corner TV that “Mr Kenyatta openly confides that he would have nothing to do with Gachagua, owing to the aggression he meted out to him both in the run-up to, and after, the 2022 General Election.”
“You are not a processed politician, you are very raw - you are political raw material. You did not deserve that office; in fact, it’s an act of political accident that Gachagua found himself in that office,” Busia Governor Paul Otuoma said yesterday in Busia.
I encourage the media to continue doing the good job
On June 16, 2025, Mr Gachagua heaped praise on local media houses, branding them “too important for us, and home to civic education among our people.”
As DP he had few kind words for journalists, often attacking those he felt were not in tune with his messaging, labelling them Azimio sympathisers.
