Rigathi Gachagua’s day of Machiavellian reckoning

Photo: Nyayo House, Nairobi © Muniini K. Mulera

Following his fall from the deputy presidency of Kenya last week, Rigathi Gachagua expressed his shock at the way his “brother and friend” President William Ruto had treated him. “I did not know that President William Ruto can be that vicious,” Gachagua said. “I am shocked by how vicious a man I helped to be president, a man that I believed in, a man that I was persecuted when supporting him could be so vicious against me when I am literally fighting for my life in hospital. How cruel can a man be?”

Gachagua alleged that he had survived an assassination attempt in Kisumu, and a second one in Nyeri, both through poisoning of his food. He lamented that he had been stripped of his security, and now feared for his life and the lives of his family members. “If anything happens to me or my family, President William Ruto must be held to account.”

These are very serious allegations, made without supporting evidence, and probably very difficult to prove. However, Gachagua’s allegations have capped a script that only Ngugi wa Thiongo could have written about a spectacular implosion of a political partnership that goes down as fast as it had catapulted two men to the pinnacle of political power. Whereas the finale will be played out in the Judicial Courts of Kenya, we are happy to relieve Gachagua from the shock of what he calls betrayal and viciousness by a “fellow Christian with whom we attended church.”

First, Gachagua is very familiar with betrayal in politics. He himself betrayed Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, a man for whom he had served as personal assistant from 2001 to 2006. Gachagua’s betrayal of his former boss and tribesman, was done with the most vicious and virulent verbal attacks against Uhuru Kenyatta and his family, that suggested a man possessed of deep-seated hatred for the family of Kenya’s first president. That Uhuru had fronted Raila Odinga, son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the uncrowned king of the Jaluo, was exploited by Gachagua to destroy Uhuru and, in his words in 2022, to “free ourselves from that (Kenyatta) family, enslavement, state capture, and conflict of interest.”

Second, Gachagua, a University of Nairobi graduate in political science and literature, must be very well informed about his country’s post-independence political history. Since1963, when Kenya gained its flag independence, most of its rulers have demonstrated remarkable examples of the dark side of politics, as described in The Prince, a remarkable sixteenth century treatise by Nicolo Machiavelli, which I am sure Gachagua has read a few times.

The betrayals, and constantly shifting political alliances in Kenya have been as difficult to keep track of as the flight of eagles and crows over East Africa. Like many African countries, Kenya’s politics, which appears to be devoid of defined ideologies or shared long-term visions within political groups, personal interests are the central drivers of the game. An excellent example of this is Raila Amolo Odinga, whose latest alliance with President Ruto, appears to be driven by his quest to become the next chairperson of the African Union Commission. This is a position that requires his president’s endorsement. The man who described Ruto in the most unflattering terms during their fight for the presidency two years ago, has now danced with the ease of a fine ballerina into the arms of the man he told us was completely untrustworthy and unsuitable to lead their country.

The more deadly betrayals have ended in unsolved murders of prominent Kenyan politicians and other citizens, slain during the presidencies of people the dead men had literally considered to be their “brothers and friends.” For me, the dark and bloody history of Kenyan politics is symbolized by a beautiful building in Nairobi. Nyayo House, at the corner of Kenyatta Avenue and Uhuru Highway, was a place horror, wailing, bleeding, and death at the hands of state agents during most of Daniel arap Moi’s presidency. It is a monument to the evil that has killed Kenyans before and after it was completed in 1983.

We remember Mau Mau Field Marshall Marete Baimungi (January 26, 1965), Pio Gama Pinto (February 24, 1965), Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya (July 5, 1969), Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (March 2, 1975), John Robert Ouko (on or about February 13, 1990), Father John Kaiser (August 23, 2000), Chris Odhiambo Mbai (September 14, 2003), Mugabe Were (January 29, 2008), George Muchai (February 7, 2015), and Chris Msando (July 29, 2017). Likewise, the road traffic accidents that killed politicians and activists like Clement Michael George Argwings Kodhek (January 29, 1969), Ronald Ngala (December 25, 1972), and Alexander Kipsang Muge (August 14, 1990) may not have been accidents.

None of these things surprises the attentive Ugandan. Our country has witnessed political betrayals that began before independence in 1962 and continue 62 years later. Many who have helped people to capture power have been discarded by those they have catapulted to the top jobs in the land. Kabaka Yekka (KY) MPs enabled Apollo Milton Obote to become Prime Minister of Uganda in 1962. In return, he made Kabaka Edward Mutesa II president of Uganda in 1963. However, by early 1966, KY was already severely disabled, five cabinet ministers, some of whom had literally hoisted Obote high when he became prime minister, were in prison, and the Kabaka was in exile in England.

The list of murdered Ugandan politicians and other high-profile citizens since 1966 is a dark chronicle of evil in control of the rulers’ hearts. None of Uganda’s rulers since 1962 is holier than the others.

The Museveni years feature a very long list of political and military “friends and brothers” of the president who have been thrown under the bus, some completely forgotten as though they never lived. It is the nature of politics, a world about which Machiavelli observed that it had no relation to morals. He understood the ways of the rulers, observing that, to them, “cruelty can be better than kindness.”

The Machiavellian ruler, of whom we have had many examples in my lifetime, believes that “making an example of one or two offenders is kinder than being too compassionate.” To such politicians, “keeping one’s word can also be dangerous, for experience shows that those who do not keep their word get the better of those who do.” The Machiavellian politician, though not moral, pretends that they are, to keep up appearances. “A prince must always seem to be very moral, even if he is not,” Machiavelli wrote.

Machiavelli believed that politics always involved deception, treachery, and crime. He acknowledged this as the way of humans holding political power. He also understood the human character that enabled ruthless morally-challenged politicians to succeed. “One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived,” Machiavelli wrote. “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.” And so, the gullible fail to detect the pretence and trickery and see nothing but virtue in the ruthless ruler. Then they cry later.

I strongly believe that we need upright leaders that view politics and government as a moral responsibility to serve humanity with honesty, transparency and principled, shared visions that serve the common good. However, my idealism does not blind me to the reality that many, perhaps most, politicians have no qualms about betraying others in their personal quest for power, influence and personal financial wealth.

Gachagua has got his comeuppance. He will not be the last in a country where politicians act like hyenas that have come upon a zebra’s carcass.