Dear Rev. Dorcas Rigathi,
We address you in distress because we believe that behind every primitive behaviour trait a man exhibits, and particularly one whom common grace has admitted into leadership, there is a careless woman who has miserably failed to advise her husband.
You have let your husband, former but now impeached Deputy President of Kenya, the so-called “truthful man”, come across as a garden gnome completely bereft of any vestige of the statesman he ought to have been when he was elevated to high office. His public buffoonery has become a form of twisted performance art, played out anywhere and everywhere with wanton abandon. All this takes place as you, Reverend, watch draped in priestly robes, Bible in hand, but in total silence as your husband rolls out contemptible tomfoolery in public.
When the Senate, that august body of sober scrutiny, found your spouse guilty of five charges, including inciting ethnic animosities and undermining the authority of the President you ought to have taken keen note. The evidence, as documented by multiple news outlets, painted a portrait of a man who mistakes a podium for a slapstick stage. Instead, of retreating into dignified reflection your husband took to the airwaves, comparing his impeachment to a crucifixion. One can only expect such hyperbole from a melodrama superstar, not a man who once swore an oath to the Constitution.
Since then, your husband Rigathi Gachagua’s conduct has curdled further. He called his successor, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, a “coward” and fabricated a tale about Kindiki hiding in a bathroom. The story, debunked by fact-checkers, revealed less about Kindiki and everything about a man who would rather invent humiliations than accept his own. He dared the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to arrest him after linking President Ruto to a fuel scandal during an Easter sermon, itself a juxtaposition of piety and petulance so jarring it would make a pagan blush.
You have publicly described this man as possessing “strength of character, wisdom, and integrity”. Reverend, do you really believe those words? When he speaks of sending political opponents to mental asylums, when he threatens authorities with a “we shall see” that carries the menace of a village bumpkin shaking a twig, do you truly perceive integrity? Or have you simply grown accustomed to the ranting of a foul-mouthed plebeian in bespoke wear?
The Sabaot elders recently requested an investigation into your husband’s divisive rhetoric, noting that his is “inflammatory language without regard for the country’s peace”. Even traditional leaders, men who rarely trouble themselves with political theatre, found his bitterness far too excessive for a sane human being. That indeed is akin to being told by a hangman that your gallows humour has overshot the limits of average psychosis.
What we ask, Dorcas, is not that you divorce the man. Heaven forbid. All we ask is that you perform the most elementary marital duty, which has a lot to do with giving honest counsel. Whisper into his ear that a former Deputy President who spends most of his time trading insults looks less like a martyr and more like a rabid neighbour overcome by bucolic excesses, one who has not yet realised the party ended hours ago. As a wife of many years with strong faith credentials, suggest a hobby to your husband. He could take up, say, bird-watching instead of engaging in activities that make him look more like a snake-oil merchant or, worse yet, a snake-charmer.
You are a Reverend, and you surely should have an idea why you should preach humility, grace, and the taming of the tongue. Apply that sermon to your own hearth. Kenya is tired of watching a grown man fling mud at a mirror and calling it a political critique. We see Gachagua’s bitterness not as righteous indignation but the whine of a chess player who overturns the board after losing to someone he is envious of.
Your husband’s poisonous tirade at the memorial service of the late Member of Parliament for Ol’ Kalou, David Njuguna Kiaraho, was completely unwarranted. It was a needless and sordid harangue that stung the ears of decent society, as did the impromptu singing of the crew accompanying your husband.
Reverend Dorcas, your husband’s legacy, is already inscribed in stone. He is the first Deputy President impeached in independent Kenya. The only remaining question is whether Gachagua intends to shout until his own echoes abandon or drown him.
How does a man of your husband’s stature go shopping for events such as funerals, family gatherings, and all manner of Sunday service events to mount platforms from which to spew loathsome diatribe as you egg him on? At this rate, dear Reverend Dorcas, Rigathi Gachagua will storm circumcision ceremony gatherings and women chamas seeking whom next to slap with his forked tongue!
You have the power, Dorcas, to reshape the former DP into a less ungainly hillbilly oozing crassness in its lowest form. Use that power before history consigns him to the backwoods where the remnants of Neanderthals dwell.
Yours in exhausted expectation,
Nyandarua Youth League Representatives
