Blunt and bold - Kenya's 'truth speaker' faces the sack

Before he was elected MP in 2017, little was known about the man who would, in five short years, rise to become Kenya’s second-in-command.

BBC | Kenya's embattled Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, calls himself the “truthful man”, attributing his remarkable rise to the fact that he speaks truth to power.

But as he faces impeachment proceedings, he says these troubles are also a result of his outspoken nature.

Before he was elected MP in 2017, little was known about the man who would, in five short years, rise to become Kenya’s second-in-command.

Not many people outside Gachagua's central Kenya constituency had heard of him or his style of politics.

Gachagua captured the limelight in the run-up to the 2022 elections, when he vehemently opposed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s choice of preferred successor.

Kenyatta was campaigning heavily for former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

But Gachagua allied himself with William Ruto, Kenyatta’s then deputy, who was angling for the presidency that his boss did not want to bequeath to him.

How Kenya's president has fallen out with his deputy

At political rallies and in media circles, Gachagua railed against Kenyatta, often in words that other politicians would find cringeworthy.

“Don’t kill me the way your father killed JM Kariuki,” he said at a rally in July 2022, referring to an MP who was killed in 1975 during the administration of Jomo Kenyatta, the nation's first president and the father of Uhuru Kenyatta.

To this day, no one has been found guilty of Kariuki's death.

Before he became Kenya's deputy president, police raided Gachagua's home and arrested him in relation to a corruption and money-laundering case.

The charges were dropped after he and Ruto took power following the 2022 election.

He had helped Ruto win by marshalling support in Mount Kenya - the biggest voting bloc in the country. Both Gachagua and Kenyatta come from there.

Kenyatta had tried to rally Mount Kenya's voters to throw their weight behind Odinga, but he failed.

You can read the full report on the BBC here...