Kenya: ousted vice president denounces assassination attempts

Former Vice President of Kenya, Rigathi Gachagua, Oct 2024 Photo: stg_nn

October 21, 2024 Hour: 5:14 pm

The Kenyan former vice president, Rigathi Gachagua, who fell out with President Ruto, leading to his ouster from office, said he was victim of assassination attemps in the last few monthes.

In his first public statement since the senate voted his impeachment, Rigathi Gachagua said “one year of continual persecution and stress”. The former vice president explained the sufferings he went through at the hands of his boss president William Ruto.

For the last one year, it has been very difficult for me but I’m a very enduring man and what happened on Thursday (Oct.17), referring to the impeachment vote, is a culmination of continual persecution and stress” for a year.

“President William Ruto wanted me to take the route president Daniel Ramoi took Kenneth Matiba. He pushed Matiba up to getting a stroke and eventually dying,” he said.

“On August 30, in Kisumu, undercover security agents entered my room and bugged it and one of them tried to poison my food, but we detected it and were able to escape the scheme. I was supposed to be killed by food poisoning,“ Gachagua stated.

Rigathi Gachagua continued his allegation of the attemps of his assassination by explaining “On September 3, another team from the National Intelligence Service came to Nyeri and tried to poison food that was meant for me and the Kikuyu council of elders.

Gachagua was discharged from hospital Sunday (Oct. 20) after being hospitalized for a “life-threatening health condition”.

Kenya’s High Court has issued a temporary order stopping the replacement of deputy president Rigathi Gachagua.

The announcement came minutes after both parliament and the senate approved the appointment of Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki as the country’s new deputy.

Gachagua feels his “only crime” was telling “the truth” as the only elected official in the cabinet of president Ruto who could.

The president has yet to comment on the accusations.