DCP party leader Rigathi Gachagua
By IP Main Editor
NAIROBI (IP)
Rigathi Gachagua has finally said the quiet part out loud — and with his trademark half-smile that hovers somewhere between sarcasm and sorrow.
The DCP party leader, once the enforcer of the “shareholding” gospel, now sounds like a headmaster tired of marking essays written in emojis.
“I really admired Raila Odinga’s style of leadership,” Gachagua said. “Look at his party and the great legal minds he had: James Orengo, Anyang’ Nyong’o, Edwin Sifuna, Millie Odhiambo, and Babu Owino. But now, you Murima people are electing Kawanjiku, Wamatinga, and Wamakeki for me.”
It was not a compliment. It was a lament wrapped in humour — the kind that makes you laugh, then realize you’re the joke.
The professor envies the pupil
To be fair, Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was never short on brains.
The man built a political church of PhDs, lawyers, professors and street philosophers.
His meetings often sounded like legal colloquia accidentally held in a stadium.
ODM’s strategy meetings had footnotes. Mt. Kenya’s, by contrast, sometimes sound like investment seminars on “how to buy influence and resell it in 2027.”
Gachagua’s admiration of Raila’s team is a confession of envy disguised as nostalgia.
He’s seen what a bench full of legal eagles can do — argue policy, sue the government, draft manifestos and still have the audacity to heckle the Speaker.
Meanwhile, in the mountains, the brain drain is so real that campaign posters should come with disclaimers: “Contents may not include legislative ability.”
Affluence without aptitude
Mt. Kenya, once the bastion of political precision, has lately been electing people whose greatest qualification is the ability to out-campaign, out-chant, or out-spend.
The political yardstick has shifted from IQ to MPESA balance.
Gachagua is right — the region has become a parade of political contractors, not thinkers.
Kawanjiku may own five petrol stations, Wamatinga might command a local youth choir and Wamakeki could quote verses from the book of Hustler, but can any of them draft a bill that survives a parliamentary committee?
Brains, Gachagua seems to say, are the new endangered species in the hills.
ODM’s irony:brains without the throne
It’s also ironic that Raila’s legal dream team — those constitutional heavyweights — never quite captured the ultimate prize.
Orengo, Nyong’o, Sifuna, Millie, Babu — all remain loyal soldiers in a party that has won more hearts than State Houses.
Yet, despite their lack of a presidential trophy, ODM has survived longer than most ruling coalitions.
Why? Because strategy and legal intellect build structures that outlast elections.
Affluence, on the other hand, buys airtime — then expires with the data bundle.
Gachagua’s “call to class”
Gachagua, perhaps realizing his newly-minted Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP) could easily drown in its own enthusiasm, is now appealing for thinkers.
He wants lawyers, technocrats and “policy people” — at least 40 of them in Parliament if his wish list is to be believed.
“ODM had legal firepower; they have noise,” he quipped recently but noise too doesn’t legislate.
Behind the jest, though, lies a political revelation. Gachagua is trying to shift the Mt. Kenya conversation from “shareholding” to “strategy.”
After two years of defending the mountain’s political stake, he now seems to realize you can’t cash a cheque written in slogans.
The moral of the story: bring your brain
Politics, after all, is a thinking man’s game. Brains write laws.
Brains defend policies. Brains create the myths that power entire movements.
Money merely rents microphones for a season.
ODM’s thinkers built a culture that can survive any election loss.
Mt. Kenya’s merchants built a campaign machine that runs out of gas the moment the last rally ends.
In his trademark sarcasm, Gachagua has delivered a sermon for his backyard: the mountain doesn’t need more millionaires in Parliament — it needs more minds because at this rate, even Raila’s ghost might outthink the next caucus of Mt. Kenya MPs.
So yes, the deputy-turned-dissident has a point. Raila may have lost elections, but he never lost the argument and in politics, arguments — not assets — are what shape nations.
Gachagua’s mountain, meanwhile, is still busy counting cows instead of votes of reason.
If the DCP leader truly wants to build a “thinking party,” he’ll need to convince the region that intellect isn’t elitism — it’s insurance as he’s just reminded them, a Parliament full of Kawanjikus is good for entertainment — but terrible for history.
