Journalist, writer and curator of the Wall of Great Africans
His ouster could have significant impact on not just internal Kenyan politics, but possibly also reshape the country’s East African and global approach
Kenya’s Deputy President (DP) Rigathi Gachagua was swiftly removed from office in the first hour of daylight- working day Friday after he was impeached in a midnight vote in the Senate on Thursday.
In a sign that Kenya President William Ruto had well rehearsed the ouster of his deputy, with whom he had fallen out, he immediately forwarded the name of Interior Cabinet Secretary of Kithure Kindiki to succeed him. By the end of lunchtime, Parliament had voted by a big margin to appoint him.
It was short and ruthless. Mr Gachagua became the first Kenyan and East African DP to be removed from office following an impeachment vote in Parliament.
The National Assembly had resoundingly voted to impeach him the previous week. The Senate only had to find him guilty of one charge but found him guilty of five of the 11 that the 59-year-old Gachagua faced.
The charges included undermining the Constitution, irregular accumulation of wealth, insubordination to the president, inciting ethnic hatred, and undermining government.
Mr Gachagua’s ouster could have a significant impact on not just internal Kenyan politics (See column), but possibly also reshape Kenya’s East African and global approach. He was an oddity in Kenyan vice-presidential history.
Since its independence 61 years ago, either by design or coincidence, except in one instance, vice-presidents have been figures either with a strong pan-Africanist and internationalist bent, foreign-educated, scions of old power and money families, individuals who could be worthy foreign ministers, bourgeois (Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi who was foreign minister and a short-lived VP in the late 1960s was an avid art collector and had 50,000 books), and intellectuals (all of them except Daniel Arap Moi and Gachagua wrote books).
Mr Gachagua was outside the mould. A former district officer in the Moi government, he came from an enforcer tradition. He was also probably the DP most rooted in the soil, and least embarrassed about speaking for the regional interests of his Central Kenya people.
An unvarnished truth-teller who couldn’t shut up, his mouth eventually got him in trouble. He grated too many by repeatedly saying the ruling Kenya Kwanza had its shareholders and they would be first in the queue to feed on the largesse provided by the government.
The charge of undermining the Constitution stemmed from that and, despite his lawyers spirited – and convincing defence - that Mr Gachagua was only spelling out the terms in the ruling coalition agreement sharing the spoils among its partner parties, that count garnered the most votes. He should have known better than to uncover his father’s nakedness.
With Prof Kindiki, Dr Ruto has gone back to default settings and injected back an internationalist dose in the DP office. A former senator, Prof Kindiki has a PhD in international law from the University of Pretoria.
He was a visiting lecturer at the University of Budapest, Hungary, and the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, and boasts over 30 books and significant articles in journals.
The more provincial Gachagua, who was dismissed by some of his many critics as a “village boy” wouldn’t speak without notes on the limitation of the architecture of the East African integration project and how a common currency could work.
Prof Kindiki can. He has spoken thoughtfully on the East Africa Community (EAC) Common Market, the one-stop border posts, and the free movement of people, goods and services within the EAC.
He has written on issues as varied as the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights, and the prosecution of the perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda
However, Kenya, Africa’s most litigious nation, will be Kenya. Mr Gachagua isn’t going quietly. As DR Ruto sent Prof Kindiki’s name to Parliament, Mr Gachagua rushed to court to challenge his ouster.
Several similar petitions were filed, and the High Court issued temporary orders stopping Mr Gachagua’s replacement until October 24, when the matter will be mentioned before a panel of judges appointed by the Chief Justice.
That ruling will test Dr Ruto’s nerve, and whether he can hold off the swearing-in of Kindiki. It also set the stage for another legal spectacle, which will continue to dramatise Kenya’s status as a constitutionally schizophrenic country. Without a doubt, Kenya is the most constitution-waving country in the region.
From the Uber driver to the roadside vendor, it is hard not to find a Kenyan who will tell you about the Constitution, and how an action by the government or an organisation is in breach of it.
In contrast to the scrappier National Assembly, the trial of Mr Gachagua in the Senate was an impressive show, with a lot of fine lawyering on display, even-handed lordly stewardship by Speaker Amason Kingi, and composed demeanour from the senators.
It unravelled spectacularly on the last stretch. After the lunch break Mr Gachagua, who was supposed to take the stand as a defence witness, was a no-show.
His lawyers told the Senate he had been taken ill, and after a break of one hour and 30 minutes granted by the Senate Speaker to allow him to reappear, his lawyers requested a postponement of the hearing to Tuesday.
The lawyers for the National Assembly, and Kenyans on X (Twitter) hinted that it was likely an old medical trick played on courts, or a political trap. The Senate, which had gazetted 10 days to dispose of the matter, voted to continue.
Mr Gachagua’s lawyers stormed out, the gloves came off, and it was downhill from there, as they held a press conference outside, saying the Senate had become a kangaroo court.
His supporters criticised the action and vote of the Senate, claiming it had been predetermined and the hearings in the houses of Parliament were a cynical show trial.
On the opposite side, his critics argued that the walkout from the Senate hearing was planned to envelop him in a shroud of martyrdom and to create ammunition for his challenge of the impeachment in court.
At a time when a recent survey reported that a record 70 percent of Kenyans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, a martyred Gachagua would play well, especially in the Central Kenya region, and offer him a foothold to battle, or at least be an influential power broker, in the 2027 election.
At a wider level, this means the political tension in Kenya, which often hobbles the economy and has been an uneasy point for investors, could persist from the impeachment. Gachagua might not recite Shakespearean verse eloquently, but he is a formidable street brawler.
