Gachagua To Lead Protests If CJ Koome Is Ejected Or Arrested

Gachagua has stressed that the leaders of the Mt Kenya region will no longer tolerate any form of mistreatment by the current regime and will not keep quiet any longer.

Marvin Chege Marvin Chege
Feb 10, 2025 - 12:48
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Gachagua To Lead Protests If CJ Koome Is Ejected Or Arrested
Collage of CJ Martha Koome and former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. /JUDICIARY. RIGATHI GACHAGUA

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has vowed to lead protests in the event embattled Chief Justice Martha Koome is removed from office or arrested.

Speaking during an interview on Sunday, February 9 with all media stations from the Mt Kenya region, the former DP affirmed that he would not allow CJ Koome to be removed from office the same way he was removed by Parliament in October 2024.

"They want to chase Martha Koome the same way they chased me. We shall not keep quiet again if they remove Martha Koome, we shall go out to the streets and close the roads," he vowed.

Gachagua has stressed that the leaders of the Mt Kenya region will no longer tolerate any form of mistreatment by the current regime and will not keep quiet any longer.

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua speaking at The Guardian Angels Tetu Catholic Church in Nyeri town Constituency, Nyeri County on January 5, 2025. /RIGATHI GACHAGUA

He outlined that the removal of the Chief Justice would significantly demean the region's communities.

"The youths came to me and told me that I made a mistake in telling them to keep quiet after I was impeached. They planned to harm us in Limuru and we kept quiet, the next day our meeting was destroyed, if that happens again we will meet in the streets," he went on.

The former Deputy President also disclosed that young people from the region had approached him, expressing their dissatisfaction after he advised them not to respond following his removal as the second-in-command.

His remarks came after he claimed a plot to remove CJ Koome from office, revealing this to congregants at Meru PCEA church on Sunday, January 26, while launching another attack against the Kenya Kwanza Government revolving around the CJ.

He alluded to the recent withdrawal of Koome’s security, terming it as one of the state’s strategies to scare the CJ and push her into resignation. “We have seen a scheme to remove Chief Justice Martha Koome from office,” he added.

"Parliament has been captured, the opposition has been neutered, if now they capture the Judiciary through the removal of Martha Koome and the Supreme Court judges, this country will slip into a dictatorship."

CJ Koome’s security was withdrawn and later reinstated in what Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen termed as a routine process within the National Police Service (NPS). He noted that Koome’s security personnel were due for promotions and subsequent training. 

On Friday, January 24, Murkomen however criticised the CJ for oversharing details surrounding the withdrawal of her security as she lamented on Thursday evening, January 23.

The CS assured CJ Koome that she was safe, clarifying that only three of her 29 security officers were withdrawn and that the security officers had been promoted and had left for training, shutting down claims of a scheme against her.

During the same January 26 address, Gachagua also alleged that there is a plot to disband the Supreme Court of Kenya ahead of the 2027 general elections, adding that a budget had already been set aside for the scheme.

CJ Martha Koome during Supreme Court proceedings on the 2022 presidential election petition. /ZAKHEEM RAJAN

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