DCP leader consults with Kirinyaga Woman Rep Njeri Maina at his Wamunyoro residence
DCP leader
Rigathi Gachagua has accused the Kenya Kwanza administration of infiltrating
the United Opposition, alleging government operatives accessed confidential
meetings and leaked details of the coalition’s strategy.
Speaking in
Portland, Oregon, Gachagua said the alleged infiltration was one of the reasons
opposition leaders abandoned plans for a permanent joint secretariat as they
prepare to select a single presidential candidate.
“We had
started with a secretariat and things were going very well. Then we brought in
a new principal, and he brought some two girls to the secretariat,” he said.
“We went
for a meeting somewhere on Lang’ata Road. When the meeting was going on, I saw
a 411 on what we had decided. Then we knew the secretariat had been
infiltrated.”
He added
that the opposition leaders had not even completed talking when information
about the meeting was leaked to the media.
“I saw a
breaking news item about what we were discussing flash on my phone’s screen,”
he said.
Gachagua
did not identify the principal he was referring to or provide evidence that the
two women were moles.
“A
secretariat is the weakest link in the unity of the opposition because the
people in the secretariat may not be as strong as we are,” Gachagua said.
He insisted
the decision to operate without a joint office was, therefore, deliberate and
agreed among the principals.
“We don’t
have a secretariat, not because it is not necessary or because we are
disorganised. No, it is strategic,” he said.
The DCP
leader said the principals had instead agreed that each party would maintain a
small team of trusted officials until the coalition settled on its presidential
candidate.
Gachagua
also linked his suspicion of political aides to his experience in government,
saying some of his own officials were compromised while he was Deputy
President.
“Ask me. My
PA was compromised by ‘Kasongo’. One of my advisers was compromised by
‘Kasongo’ when I was in office, and they sold me. They were given money, and
they sold me,” he said.
Kirinyaga
Woman Representative Njeri Maina, an ally of Gachagua, has also echoed the
allegations.
She warned
that alleged National Intelligence Service operatives could undermine the
opposition’s efforts to settle on a single candidate.
“In regard
to the political class, NIS enlisted several operatives whom I fear might
eventually sink the United Opposition, if we fall into a trap that’s
premeditated by government,” Maina said in a post on X.
She added:
“May the good Lord have mercy on us because the months leading to the single
presidential candidate will be the longest!”
While Maina
did not name the alleged operatives or provide evidence of their links to the
NIS, the claims have already drawn pushback from within the opposition.
Jubilee
deputy leader (Operations) Jeremiah Kioni cautioned Gachagua and
opposition principals against branding fellow members “moles”.
Kioni
warned that such accusations could undermine the very unity the coalition is
seeking to build.
Speaking on
K24, Kioni said the opposition should approach potential allies with an “open
hands” attitude rather than seeking to exclude or intimidate them.
“When you
are in opposition, never bully anybody. When you come with a bully attitude,
that alienates the opposition and starts making it look like this cannot help
us from where we are. In opposition, you come with open hands,” he said.
Kioni has
also directly responded to Gachagua’s claim that members of Jubilee could be
moles within the coalition.
“To claim
that you are unable to form a secretariat because there are moles within the
Jubilee Party, that is hitting rock bottom. It is simply appalling,” he said in
Nyandarua.
Former
Kirinyaga Woman Representative Wangui Ngirici has also criticised the growing
tendency in DCP to label politicians who previously served in government as
moles.
Ngirici
questioned the criteria being used to determine who qualifies as a mole,
arguing that politicians who leave government and join DCP or other opposition
parties should not automatically be viewed with suspicion.
She said
the branding risks creating unnecessary divisions within the opposition at a
time when different political leaders are seeking to work together.
Former
Unctad secretary general Mukhisa Kituyi, who had been designated the
coalition’s spokesperson and head of its proposed secretariat, quit and joined
the Linda Mwananchi movement last week.
Kituyi said
the coalition had failed to establish a functioning joint structure, and that
parties preferred operating through their individual secretariats.
