By Eugenia Kindaruma
A regular newspaper columnist, Macharia Gaitho recently referred to Kenya’s political “parties” as transient convenience vehicles cobbled up quickly for election purposes and largely lacking in ideology or cogent policies. Gaitho further predicted that the much-touted forthcoming party of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua would be no different. I agree.
If you look and listen carefully, the same script Gachagua vehemently championed to besmirch former President Uhuru Kenyatta while campaigning ahead of the 2022 general election is the very one he is riding on today.
The only difference is that his tongue has more venom than back in 2022. And by the way, has it occurred to Kenyans that the very person shouting the “one-term” phrase to his former boss could not see his inaugural season to the end? Talk of the kettle calling the pot black! What is more dizzying about the former DP is the trash talk he is spewing lately in his Sunday roadside rallies and church appearances. He comes out so rabid that he reminds many of crude name-calling ruffians angry at the undesirable karma fate hands to the insolent.
Away from the DP’s haughty posturing, Kenya deserves a solemn moment of statesmanship like never before. However, in the tumultuous arena of our politics, where the pursuit of statesmanship has been relegated to the garbage dump, the recent conduct of the former DP President has descended into a spectacle of entitlement and unbecoming vitriol.
His unhidden view that the seat of the second-in-command is a birth right, coupled with his undignified broadsides against President William Ruto, exposes a profound lack of decorum and a glaring disconnect from the very principles of collective governance he once swore to uphold.
It is a bitter irony that the former DP now clamours for President Ruto to be confined to a single term, while conveniently airbrushing his own political misadventures from public memory. This is a leader who failed to see his tenure through to its constitutional conclusion, lasting only two years at the helm.
Yet here he is, without a jot of shame addressing the matter of presidential term limits! Gachagua’s recent remarks laced with caustic animus are totally unbecoming of a statesman.
In fact, his utterances point to a person with dangerous disrespect for crucial institutional, foremost of them all, the presidency. To address the Head of State with such disdain betrays a fundamental disregard for the office itself.
Where is the maturity demanded of one who once stood a heartbeat away from the presidency? Equally troubling about Gachagua is his incessant jabs directed at the current DP. When chiding current DP Prof Kithure Kindiki, Gachagua exposes the neophyte he is in the fine art of decent stewardship of national affairs. Gachagua’s clumsy blend of tribal insinuations and thinly veiled threats are signs of a person whose caveman instincts are still intact.
The sooner Gachagua realises that leadership is not a trophy to brandish or a megaphone for grievances, the better. Any vestiges of his legacy as the second DP in Kenya’s history are now nearly completely wiped out and badly tarnished by his petulant outbursts.
Gachagua’s political capital is dissipating by the day largely because of the pungency his big mouth extrudes as it will sure do this coming Sunday. Yes, President Ruto’s administration is not perfect and none has ever been anyway. However, imperfect as it may be deemed to be, the President deserves criticism rooted in policy, not the schoolyard taunts of embittered wags and overzealous novices.
This is no time for recycled grudges or reckless grandstanding. The former DP should channel his energy into mentoring rising leaders rather than leading a cast of second bananas consumed in their own self-righteousness and self-importance. Our former DP should have borrowed a leaf from Botswana’s Slumber Tsogwane, the immediate former VP who gracefully took his position without resorting to unnecessary theatrics or Tanzania’s Philip Mpango, the current VP, again who knows how to support the presidency without trying to steal the spotlight.
History will judge leaders not by the acidity of their rhetoric, but by the weight and thoughtfulness of their utterances. I pray that such judgment finds Gachagua reformed.
Mrs Kindaruma is a Meru-based leadership trainer and educationist
