Recent news reports have it that Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is being “undermined” by certain other leaders in his own political backyard of Central Kenya.
If you ask me, I will say that I am surprised it took so long for this to happen. It's an old Kenyan political tradition that serving Deputy Presidents (previously designated as Vice Presidents) will always have elected leaders in their backyard who believe that they are pushovers and can easily be replaced.
It is never truly clear if such agitation against the DP is “sponsored” by the president; “encouraged” by the president; or merely “tolerated” by the president. But there is always this suspicion that if the president was to fully back his deputy, then such mischief would not take place at all.
Seen in a historical context, what the current DP is facing is quite mild. Just recently, barely three years ago, we were routinely subjected to the televised spectacle of (now retired) President Uhuru Kenyatta snubbing his deputy (none other than the serving president, Dr William Ruto) at a public event.
Also, I seem to recall a time when Dr Ruto was “denied permission” to travel to Uganda – apparently only finding out that he could not fly to Kampala when he got to the airport.
However, all this pales into insignificance, when compared to what Vice President, Daniel Moi, had to endure at the hands of the inner circle of our founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, in the 1970s.
Among the shenanigans that this group got up to, was to set up an elite paramilitary squad colloquially referred to as the “Ngoroko” who were to try and secretly assassinate Daniel Moi in the event that the then-ailing Jomo Kenyatta died.
This same Daniel Moi, once he was president despite all odds, was to prove that he was quite inventive when it came to dishing out humiliation to his Vice Presidents.
Prof George Saitoti, for one, was treated with open contempt on any number of occasions, including being told in public (and apparently for the first time) that Moi did not consider him a worthy successor for the presidency and that he should give way to the young Uhuru Kenyatta who was Moi’s chosen successor.
There are two lessons to be drawn from all this:
First is that the Deputy Presidency in Kenya comes with a crown of thorns, and anyone who ascends to that office should accept this as just part of the way we do things here in Kenya.
Second, is that the antidote to this unending supply of humiliation is to be stoic and just accept it, rather than boil over in anger and start a fight.
The fact is that all those who have ended up as president here in Kenya, first served as Vice Presidents (Daniel Moi, Mwai Kibaki) or were Deputy Prime Minister (Uhuru Kenyatta) or Deputy President (William Ruto).
Historically, there is really no other path to the Kenyan presidency. You first have to be the nation’s “number two” before you can hope to be “number one.”
And of those who made this transition from the second-in-command to the top job, what marked their journey was the ability to quietly endure what Shakespeare defined as “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
I should mention though the potential barriers to Gachagua’s eventual elevation to the presidency, quite aside from the “stab in the back” from rivals within Central Kenya.
Most significant is that our democracy has produced a surplus of senior politicians who have served in high office.
The current Prime Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi, for example, is a former Deputy Prime Minister, having served in that position during the Grand Coalition government of 2007 to 2012. And the key opposition leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, was a Vice President in that very coalition government.
Each of these men has also made an unsuccessful run for the presidency in the past.
And so, they have every right to decide that it's time they made yet another serious run for the presidency.