Rigathi Gachagua must stop peddling the dangerous fallacy that he single-handedly delivered the presidency to William Ruto in 2022. This self-aggrandising myth is not only historically false but reveals a man detached from reality.
The truth is simpler and more humbling: Ruto selected Gachagua as running mate primarily to consolidate Mt Kenya votes, after internal polls and intense lobbying showed other contenders — including Kithure Kindiki (the overwhelming favourite among many legislators), Alice Wahome, and Ndindi Nyoro — as strong alternatives.
Ruto’s strategic choice of Gachagua was about numbers and regional arithmetic, not personal indispensability. To claim otherwise is to suggest that without him, Mt Kenya would have voted for Raila Odinga — a laughable assertion that insults the intelligence of the region’s voters.
Gachagua’s narrative conveniently ignores that Ruto campaigned vigorously across the country and built a broad coalition. The mountain delivered, but it was not a personal favour to Gachagua; it was a calculated regional decision.
Fast-forward to today: recent by-elections in Mt Kenya and elsewhere show UDA continuing to post respectable performances even without Gachagua’s active support. This undermines his inflated sense of kingmaker status. If he was truly the indispensable force he claims, his absence should have collapsed Ruto’s influence entirely. It has not.
The impeached former Deputy President’s constant revisionism is classic bitterness politics — rewriting history to mask his current irrelevance after the court upheld his disqualification from public office. Kenyans must call out such lies. Leadership is not defined by chest-thumping claims of having “made” someone president, but by tangible delivery and institutional capacity.
Mt Kenya, and Kenya at large, deserve honesty, not delusions from a barred politician desperate to remain relevant. Ruto picked Gachagua for strategic reasons. The mountain voted for change. Neither owes the other eternal gratitude least of all one now constitutionally sidelined and rewriting the past to feed his ego.
