Rigathi Gachagua has accused the government of bribing Ol Kalou voters with subsidised gas cylinders and mattresses in exchange for their national identity cards ahead of the July 16 by-election. He has urged residents to accept the items but retain their IDs, framing the exercise as a scheme to disenfranchise them.
This is the same Rigathi Gachagua who, in May 2026, travelled to the United Kingdom and actively appealed to Kenyans in the diaspora to raise funds for his Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP) candidate in the very same Ol Kalou by-election. He openly told supporters in London that his candidate, a former employee who lost his job after Gachagua’s impeachment, needed money for logistics, posters, agents and mobilisation. He was not shy about soliciting external funding for the campaign.
Now, weeks later, he cries foul when the government rolls out a clean cooking programme in Nyandarua, accusing it of vote-buying. The hypocrisy is glaring.
More fundamentally, Gachagua has offered the people of Ol Kalou nothing concrete in return for their votes. He has presented no development agenda, no jobs plan, no infrastructure commitments, and no legislative priorities for the constituency. His core message remains the same: elect a DCP candidate to punish President William Ruto for his impeachment.
This is the dangerous reduction of an entire constituency to a theatre for one man’s personal vendetta. Under the Constitution, the people of Ol Kalou are electing a Member of Parliament to represent their interests in the National Assembly to fight for their share of national resources, oversight government projects, and advance local priorities. They are not electing a proxy to settle Rigathi Gachagua’s political scores.
A politician who has no tangible offer to voters except anger and the promise of settling old scores has no business lecturing anyone about bribery or representation. The people of Ol Kalou deserve leaders who come with plans, not grudges.
