Cherargei petitions NCIC to prosecute Gachagua for hate speech

In a letter to the Commission dated July 27, 2026, Cherargei wants the NCIC to examine remarks Gachagua has made at rallies, in media interviews and during press briefings, which the senator argues have linked the Kalenjin community to criminality, insecurity and organised violence.

"The statements have given rise to allegations of ethnic profiling and the association of members of the Kalenjin community with criminality, insecurity and organized violence," he wrote.

Cherargei grounded the request in Article 27 of the Constitution, which bars discrimination on ethnic grounds, and Article 33, which strips hate speech and ethnic incitement of free-speech protection. He also cited the National Cohesion and Integration Act, whose provisions criminalise words likely to stir up ethnic hatred.

At the centre of the complaint is a statement Gachagua made after the alleged abduction of MP George Koimburi, which the senator annexed as a video recording and transcript.

Cherargei says Gachagua claimed the President, the Interior Cabinet Secretary and the Deputy Inspector General of Police, all of whom he identified as Kalenjin, had set up a special squad to target government critics. According to the senator, Gachagua went further, alleging the unit was made up of 20 officers drawn from the Nandi community and taking orders directly from the Deputy Inspector General.

Whether or not the claims were true, Cherargei argued, airing them in terms that tied a specific community to such conduct was enough to fuel ethnic suspicion and harden stereotypes.

He said the remarks were not a one-off, but part of a wider pattern in which Gachagua had revisited the raw wounds of the 2007/2008 post-election violence and repeatedly cast the community in a negative light.

The senator asked the Commission to pull the original recordings, establish the context and decide whether Gachagua had crossed any legal line, before moving to "investigate and prosecute" the former Deputy President.

He framed the petition against the backdrop of the coming General Election, warning that Kenya's history has shown how quickly ethnically charged rhetoric can threaten the peace around a vote.