A poisoned chalice? Deputy Presidency, the well-paying, powerful job no one leaves unscathed

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is a man under siege. It’s a kind of siege that will likely leave your hairline in recession.

The tough-talking Riggy G, as he is popularly known, has been reduced to issuing apologies to those he wronged a long way from the "Murima" (Mt Kenya) kingpin.

But even before he knows his fate, Rigathi can draw consolation from the fact that – he is not the fast one to be in this situation – and will not be the last one.

Kenya has had 10 Vice Presidents and 2 Deputy Presidents since the colonialists fled, leaving us the tough job of self-governance in 1963.

Of the 12 – only a handful had a cakewalk during their tenure, the rest either resigned in a huff, or endured their ‘tumultuous’ tenures in pain and silence.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was Kenya’s first Vice President – and the first to ‘teach’ Kenyans that one could actually resign from Vice Presidency, a high-profile, well-paying job.

So, Jaramogi resigned after just two years in office, in 1966 – two years after independence, leaving an ageing Mzee Jomo Kenyatta to figure out how to run the country.

Odinga wrote a resignation letter to Jomo Kenyatta – announcing his departure.

“I have a conscience… and this does prick me when I earn public money and with no job to do."

Odinga felt he had not been treated right as a Vice President. And with that – Odinga left the group.

Strategic & Political Communications, and Leadership Communications Consultant Barrack Muluka describes Jaramogi as a different Vice President, whose resignation was driven by something totally different.

“Jaramogi had a stance against what he believed was bad governance. He felt that the government had digressed from the original plan of leadership after it took over power,” Muluka told Citizen Digital.

According to Mr Muluka, many other Vice Presidents and Deputy Presidents may have fallen out with their bosses because of varied reasons.

He left slightly after two months in office. And just like Jaramogi, he too wrote a letter expressing his frustrations. He resigned in 1966, the same year Odinga quit to go cool his heels at home.

Daniel Arap Moi took over the hot seat – and like a harmless sheep – he endured.  

Moi never quit – and when he became president in 1978 following Mzee Jomo’s death – his tormentors reportedly fled.

Moi’s first Vice President, a well-educated Mwai Kibaki, served ten years, from 1978 to 1988, before resigning.

Kibaki’s Vice Presidency was equally tumultuous. In 1980, for instance, he called a presser to express his disaffection at certain people in then government, whom he accused of tarnishing his reputation.

"You do not have to blacken the other fellow for you to shine," Kibaki would later say, in reference to his tiff with Njonjo.

Kibaki would go on to serve as Vice President for 10 years.

Josephat Karanja would succeed Kibaki, but left in a huff after resigning a year later in 1989. The seat was too hot.

George Saitoti who came soon after, left acrimoniously in 2002 after Moi fronted a young Uhuru Kenyatta to run for presidency. Saitoti was furious.

A humble son of Moses, one Musalia Mudavadi, would take over the reins as the Vice President, but only for two months, becoming the shortest serving Vice President.

Michael Wamalwa, Moody Awori and Kalonzo Musyoka had fairly quiet tenures as Vice Presidents during President Mwai Kibaki’s 10-year presidency.

Then the Deputy became president and he is now getting a dose of his own medicine by his deputy. But unlike Uhuru, Ruto will evidently not tolerate his number two, and with an impeachment motion on, he might just get rid of Riggy G. Is the Deputy Presidency a poisoned chalice? one would ask.

Only Moody Awori and Kalonzo Musyoka seemed to have had a beautiful working relationship with their boss who happened to be Mwai Kibaki. All others start well then go up in smoke.

“Our system of governance tends to be self-serving, rather than service to the people, and this is why we have had, and continue to have such fall-outs,” says Mr Muluka.

“Julius Nyerere described us as a man-eat-man society, where the leaders eat the people,” concludes Muluka.