Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua revealed why he has been missing out on some key national events attended by State officers and his boss, President William Ruto.
Speaking on Friday in an interview with Citizen TV, Gachagua revealed that he together with his team have been removed from the WhatsApp group where the President’s itinerary is shared, presumably to exclude them from state affairs.
He claimed that Ruto’s private secretary Reuben Miayo expelled his team from the President’s diary a week ago hence he has been nescient and cannot grace functions of the head of State.
“About a week ago, we were removed from that diary so we were not able to follow what was going on and so we cannot align.
When I am aware where the President is, I am always there.
When I am not aware, there is nothing I can do about it,” said Gachagua.
“It is a WhatsApp Group and it’s updated as we go on and we keep on aligning.
I was removed, my private secretary and Chief of Staff was removed and so we have no access to the diary.”
The DP cried foul of the move by the President’s close allies, terming it “mischievous” and aimed at discrediting his service as the deputy president in order to presumably justify bringing an impeachment motion against him.
Gachagua argued that the removal serves to ensure he fails to attend state functions or appears to the President’s meetings late so that he is labeled as disrespectful or absconding duties.
“There is mischief to remove me from the Presidential diary so that once I do not attend Presidential events, it can be purported that I am absconding duty.
I hear that was one of the grounds for impeachment.
Sometimes they want me to appear late so that it can appear I am disrespectful,” he said.
Gachagua appealed to Ruto and the people responsible to include his team in the President’s diary, underscoring his position as the second-in-command so that he fulfills his mandate to the people.
“I am the DP elected by the people and I am the principal assistant of the President. It is only right and fair that I have access to the presidential diary so that I align his diary with my diary because he is the boss,” he noted.
“But if I am in the dark and don’t know what is happening, I am not an angel to know exactly where he will be at what time and that is not right.
So if Kenyans don’t see me in any of the presidential functions is because I am not aware of the function and the function they see me is the one I am invited to.”
Gachagua reiterated his cadre as a “workaholic” saying; “I am a very obedient public officer, I was a man in uniform and I have tremendous respect for the President and his office.”
“I would be the last person to attend events or come late. I want to ask the people who work around the presidency not to create conflict between the President and I.”
But the head of Creative Economy and Special Projects in the Office of the President Dennis Itumbi responded to Gachagua claim that he was removed from Ruto’s diary WhatsApp group.
According to Itumbi, Ruto was the first person to be removed from the WhatsApp group.
He went on to say that the group was deleted after highly classified documents in it were being shared to other groups.
“Yes, the Diary group was deleted. What DP Gachagua fails to mention is that the President was removed even before him, and The group was permanently Deleted due to the highly classified documents being shared in WhatsApp groups,” Itumbi said.
Itumbi did not explain if this was a strategy to keep Gachagua off the diary and a new one had been created for the same purpose.
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