Who is Gachagua, the impeached Kenya’s Deputy President?

Nairobi: Geoffrey Rigathi Gachagua, born on February 28, 1965, is a Kenyan politician who has been impeached as Deputy President of Kenya.

He was impeached by the National Assembly of Kenya on October 8, 2024. He is the first Deputy President to be impeached in Kenya by the National Assembly.

His fate now belongs to the Kenyan Senate, after which he will know his fate if he loses the office of deputy president. He previously served as the Member of Parliament for Mathira Constituency between 2017 and 2022 as a member of the Jubilee Party.

In the 2022 election, William Ruto selected Gachagua as his running mate, and the two were elected with just over 50% of the vote.

He previously served in various junior roles in government, including assistant secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Heritage, personal assistant to the Head of the Public Service, personal assistant to Minister for Local Government Uhuru Kenyatta, and a district officer.

Early life and education

He was born in 1965 in Hiriga village of Nyeri County, the child of Gachagua Reriani and Martha Kirigo. His parents were Mau Mau freedom fighters in Mount Kenya forest, where his father serviced guns for the Mau Mau while his mother was a food and ammunition courier for the fighters.

He is the younger brother of Nderitu Gachagua, the first governor of Nyeri County.

He enrolled at Kabiruini Primary School from 1971 to 1977 before proceeding to Kianyaga High School for his O- and A-levels. In 1985, he joined the University of Nairobi, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and Literature in 1988.

At the University of Nairobi, Gachagua was the Nyeri District University Students Association (NDUSA) leader as well as the chairman of the Association of Literature Students.

After graduating from the University of Nairobi with a bachelor’s degree in administration, Gachagua was employed for a short time at Kenya’s Ministry of Home Affairs and National Heritage before he joined the Administration Police Institute in 1990. After graduating from the Administration Police Institute, Gachagua was posted at the Office of President Daniel Arap Moi as a District Officer Cadet between 1991 and 1992.

Gachagua then went on to serve as a district officer in Kakameag, Navakholo, Ng’arua, and Laikipia districts. Between 1999 and 2000, he joined the Kenya School of Government, where he graduated with an Advanced Diploma in Public Administration.

Between 2001 and 2006, Gachagua worked as the personal assistant to Uhuru Kenyatta.

Between 2007 and 2017, Gachagua remained behind the scenes, running his businesses.

Political career

Gachagua was elected as a member of parliament for Mathira Constituency, which was earlier held by his brother Nderithu, in the 2017 election.

Rigathi Gachagua is known for his outspoken, aggressive, and sometimes abrasive style of politics. His time as a legislator was characterized by championing issues that centered primarily on the needs of Mount Kenya residents; often he addressed issues by publicly putting the authority figures mandated to solve them to task.

William Ruto would later cite this as one of the reasons Gachagua was chosen as his running mate, saying, “Gachagua is a very passionate leader, a people’s person. He speaks about ordinary people.

In 2017, Gachagua took on Keriako Tobiko as the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Forestry. The Cabinet Secretary had raised the alarm regarding overexploitation of upstream water resources in the Mt. Kenya Region and directed the Kenya Forest Service to destroy illegal intakes.

Gachagua claimed that many of the intakes destroyed were legal and that this had occasioned a water crisis for thousands of people. He said, “I am calling for his [Tobiko’s] sacking on the basis of incompetence; he is not able to appraise the situation. He did not do due diligence on the legality of the intakes, and he failed in analysis of the humanitarian crisis arising from the situation.”

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Simon Chelugui, was drawn into the fray, meeting with Gachagua and other Mt Kenya legislators over the matter. He promised to have all intakes with necessary documentation restored.

In 2019, Gachagua sponsored an amendment bill to the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015. He argued that Kenyan firms could not fairly compete and would be run out of the market by Chinese firms that were able to get loans at less than a sixth the interest rates.

He was also critical of the alleged market advantages the Chinese received when carrying out government business; he said, “What is annoying us is that once they get a contract, the materials coming for the construction are procured from China, and they import them duty-free.”

The amendment reserved government contracts under 1 billion shillings for local companies and proposed stiffer penalties for circumventing the local ownership requirements for larger contracts. The bill would eventually be turned down by the National Assembly’s Finance and National Planning committee, citing limited local capacity to provide goods and services as the reason.

Deputy President

On May 15, 2022, he was nominated as the running mate to the United Democratic Alliance presidential candidate William Ruto under the Kenya Kwanza political coalition. Others who were eyeing the same position included Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru, Kandara MPAlice Muthoni Wahome, Tharaka Nithi Senator Kithure Kandiki, and National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi.

During the campaign, he publicly accused former president Jomo Kenyatta, the father of outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, of responsibility over the assassination of opposition politician Josiah Mwangi Kariuki in 1975.

Gachagua has a chequered past with pending court cases over alleged cases of misappropriation of government funds.

On 28 July 2022, a Kenyan court ordered Rigathi Gachagua to reimburse Ksh 202 million (US$1.7 million), finding that the money was derived from corruption.

In November 2022, Rigathi Gachagua faced corruption charges in a $60 million case. These charges were eventually dropped.

On October 1, 2024, a motion to impeach Gachagua was introduced in Parliament. This followed a deterioration in his relations with Ruto. Ten articles of impeachment were brought against him, including corruption, ethnic discrimination, and contradicting government policies. A majority of 291 MPs signed their support for the measure.

A vote on whether to remove him from office was scheduled for October 8, 2024. On October 8, 2024, 281 Members of Parliament voted in favor of the motion, while 44 were against. One MP abstained. This is the first time under the 2010 Constitution that the National Assembly has voted to remove a state official from office.

Personal life

Rigathi is married to Dorcas Wanjiku Rigathi, a retired banker who is now a pastor in Mathira.

They met at a joint university event at the University of Nairobi in 1985. They got married in 1989 and have two sons, Kevin and Keith.

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