Didacus Malowa, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, brings over three years of experience covering politics and current affairs in Kenya.

- Former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua has dismissed President William Ruto’s recent five-day tour of the Mt Kenya region, accusing him of engaging in political theatrics.

In a no-holds-barred interview with KTN News on Monday, April 7, Gachagua fired back at the president’s claims made at Sagana State Lodge.

"The people of Kenya can benefit from my reply to the very ridiculous claims made by President William Ruto. It’s very sad that I have to spend time responding to such nonsense,"Gachagua said.

Gachagua took issue with how the tour was branded a development mission, saying nothing new was announced and that Ruto simply rehashed old projects.

"The president went to the mountain for a political tour. It's not a development tour, the way you call it, because there's nothing he did. If you go through wherever he went, he was just having rallies, relaunching projects that he had launched before, saying he's inspecting projects, he's not an engineer, he's not a quality surveyor or he's not an architect, and making all manner of promises that he has made since he was elected as president,” Gachagua quipped.

He added that Mt Kenya residents were treated to more promises, many of which were made back in 2022 and remain unfulfilled.

Gachagua’s remarks were in direct response to Ruto’s explosive allegations made in Sagana, where the president claimed his then-deputy demanded KSh 10 billion to “organise politics” in the region.

"It reached me that someone told me, 'You know, I (Rigathi Gachagua) can make you a one-term president if you don’t do this, if you don’t do this. I need ten billion shillings so that I can go and talk to the people of the mountain, you know, to organise politics for you'," Ruto alleged.

But Gachagua, visibly angered by the accusations, dismissed them outright, calling them pathological lies and implying that Ruto’s mental state should be questioned.

He explained that his supporters wanted an immediate response to the accusations, but he chose to hold off for a while.

"I was under a lot of pressure from supporters and people who listened to him to respond immediately. I just tweeted that pathological lying is a mental disorder," the former DP added.

Source: TUKO.co.ke