By Fwamba NC Fwamba
June 9, 2025
“Hello cousins?” Really? From Rigathi Gachagua? The same man who once stood before cheering crowds and said Luhyas, Kambas, Kisiis, and even the Bantus at the Coast did not deserve positions in government because, in his twisted arithmetic of ‘shareholding,’ they did not bring in enough votes? The same man who reduced the entire nation to an ethnic auction where only those who sang his tribal tune deserved a seat at the table? The same man who spat in the face of national unity and dressed it up as political pragmatism?
Is it not laughable that the architect of exclusion now wants to wrap himself in the flag of unity? Is this not the same voice that echoed through villages and towns declaring that Kenya is a company with shareholders and others must wait by the gate, empty handed, begging for scraps? Where was this sudden kinship when he sliced Kenya into tribal slices and declared some too small to matter?
He spoke as though being born into the ‘right’ tribe was a qualification for opportunity. He governed like Kenya belonged to one region, one community, one surname. He scoffed at the rest, mocking them with arrogance soaked in contempt. And now he wants hugs and handshakes from those he mocked? He wants sympathy from those he starved? He wants redemption from those he discarded?
Where was this “cousinhood” when our sons and daughters bright, qualified, ambitious were locked out of government positions, overlooked for appointments, bypassed for tenders, simply because their names betrayed their roots? Where was this spirit of brotherhood when he shouted into microphones that those who didn’t vote ‘correctly’ shouldn’t expect development? Was that not his gospel? His creed?
When families across Western, Eastern, Nyanza, and Coastal Kenya sat around tables wondering why their regions were ignored, was he not the one justifying the injustice with that smug grin of ethnic supremacy? When parents told their children, “Work hard and serve your country,” how could they explain that someone in Nairobi had decided their tribe made them less Kenyan?
Is this the man now pretending to see a nation? Pretending to love the people he once called insignificant? Pretending to want to unite those he spent years dividing?
How can a man who lit the fires of division now preach peace with a Bible he never read? How can one who poisoned the well now come with a cup, pretending to offer water? How can he who built walls now claim to be a bridge?
And why now? Why this sudden turn? Is it because the power he abused now slips through his fingers? Is it because those who cheered him on have turned their backs, and he finds himself alone, abandoned by the very fortress of privilege he thought was eternal? Is it because he now sees the people not as obstacles but as a possible rope to pull himself out of the political abyss?
This is not transformation. It is desperation. It is not a change of heart. It is a change of strategy. It is not remorse. It is survival.
He never believed in Kenya. He believed in conquest. He never built unity. He built echo chambers. He never carried the nation. He carried his tribe like a badge and waved it like a sword. And now, when that sword has turned against him, he wants to hold hands?
The nation remembers. We remember his sneers. We remember his arrogance. We remember when he stood before us and divided us with surgical precision. We remember when he reduced state appointments to ethnic arithmetic. We remember when he measured patriotism by polling station performance. And now he wants us to forget?
This is not unity. This is political necromancy. This is a dead career reaching out from the grave, hoping to find life in the very people it buried.
Leadership is not a performance. It is a conviction. Unity is not a tool for political rehabilitation. It is a sacred covenant with the people. You do not mock a nation and then expect applause when you whisper apologies laced with cowardice. You do not kick a people down and then cry for their embrace when your castle of cards collapses.
We are not cousins. We are citizens. We are not guests at your tribal table. We are owners of this republic. We do not seek your validation. We demand our rights. We are not pawns to be moved by the tremors of your crumbling ambition.
So no Mr Gachagua. Keep your cousin talk. Kenya deserves leaders not merchants of exclusion. Kenya deserves visionaries not architects of tribal empires. Kenya deserves justice not recycled arrogance dressed in the robes of repentance.
This republic is moving on. Without you.
By Fwamba NC Fwamba
June 9, 2025
