Looking at and listening to Mr Rigathi Gachagua today, the adage things change--vindu vichenjanga--immediately comes to mind.

The ‘vindu vichenjanga’ cliche gained traction via a Luhya song in 2017 by Amos Barasa by that title, implying to change of times, to imply that President Uhuru Kenyatta was to be defeated in the 2017 General Election. It wasn’t to be.

Mr Gachagua is a man who for the past two(2) years has rapidly changed from a Deputy President to impeached...to now a regional kingpin threatening his former boss William Ruto with real one term presidency scare. 

In his agenda, Mr Gachagua is coming out as a man willing to abandon all the stances he was known for, shedding the image of a government hawk to its harshest critic, making it hard to recognize his former public talking mannerism.

The person who has since suffered most in the Gachagua reformation is President William Ruto who has in the past six months become his punching bag.

One can rarely recognize the President Ruto in the current Gachagua's mind, the same when he was Deputy President two(2) years ago used to praise as "a well meaning gentleman who I did not even enter into a written agreement with in 2022 since I fully trust him".

Today, in Mr Gachagua's mind, President Ruto--who in turn once praised as passionate about people's issues and who only a jealous man can fight for nothing-- is "betrayer of trust, one man show and befitting ballot rejection".

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) don calls it politics "where in a competition, it plays out just like in a love relationship where the moment it gets toxic all care goes to the wind".

He says "it's perfectly in order for Mr Gachagua to change with time especially that the things he was earlier saying in favour of President Ruto and his government led him to thankless sendoff and maybe disowning the very things he said can possibly give him a comeback...that is politics".

The Gachagua who not once or twice hit the podium in support of the affordable housing programme saying it will create jobs for millions of youths is today among the harshest critics of the same.

"Those lecturing the president about this affordable housing programme are only clueless about the visionary agenda Dr Ruto has for this country," he said in March 2023 while in Murang'a County.

Mr Gachagua said "we are deliberate in dignifying people's lives and (in a direct jab to Mr Raila Odinga) we cannot take lectures from politicians who have thrived by packing people in slums as his voting block".

Today, Mr Gachagua believes the programme should be abolished since "it is one of the biggest fraudulent undertaking by the Ruto administration where it is business opportunity for selling cement, steel and iron sheets by who is who in this government".

The Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) that Mr Gachagua supported as Deputy President is today a “death kennel for Kenyans owing to its impracticality and inefficiencies where the key target is corrupting the more than Sh100 billion infrastructure revamping from the previous National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF)”.

A man like the National Assembly majority leader Mr Kimani Ichung'wa was in better days in Gachagua's mind a "visionary, principled and community defender in the National Dialogue Committee and our interests are safe with him".

Today, Mr Ichung'wa has become "that man who has pawned his brain to president Ruto, a man the president says to air all manner of infamies to disparage even his own community".

Mr Gachagua would praise Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro as "a man with a political future and whom I will spare no effort to groom and shape".

Forget that Mr Nyoro had launched his programme to cut Mr Gachagua,59, to size where his allies led by Murang'a Senator Joe Nyutu wanted the Mathira-born DP sacked and replaced with the 38-year-old Kiharu MP.

Today, Mr Gachagua has changed tune about the Kiharu MP, describing him "as a man with no stand... even what is happening is so major and not for the silent".

The ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party that Mr Gachagua was describing as the Mountain party "that we will enroll into to a man for now and for 2027" has now become a leprosy zone to be avoided.

As he makes his hyped Mt Kenya declaration that he says will inform area voters on the direction to take in 2027, Mr Gachagua says he will announce a new party for the purpose that will spell the sudden and irreversible death of the UDA.

His own Mathira MP Mr Eric wa Mumbi used to be a darling "a man I fully trust and endorse as the right leader to inherit my seat as I move higher to serve as DP".

Today, as Mr Mumbi also dismisses the Gachagua who among others, played his father figure role in his dowry negotiation and payment to his marriage to Murang'a Woman Representative Betty Maina as "the deranged, impeached and near nuts man", is "that political toddler in the president's praise and worship team whose inclination to sellout politics is unmatched". 

But it has not been all from the positive to negative minded Mr Gachagua, there are instances he has adopted positivity from earlier negativities.

For instance, as the Deputy President, he described Kikuyu Council of Elders as "that greedy and divisive entity that we cannot even entrust with the simple task of brewing our traditional liquor (Muratina) for us".

He said the elders around the area would certainly fast track the brewing to avoid waiting for the weeklong fermentation process "and would certainly add chemicals so that it can get ready faster and be more potent in their hurry to get drunk'.

He has since beaten a 180 degrees turn and is today seen in the elders' company as he consults in readiness to taking charge of the community's 2027 vote decision.

He has also decamped from his earlier stance of hitting out at the founding father of the nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, his family that include former president Uhuru Kenyatta and the family's business interests. Mr Gachagua has since publicly apologized to the family and embraced it as his senior both economically and politically.

"We will never again take the character of rabid dogs in tearing down one of our own and to a point of even disparaging our community's matriarch Mama Ngina Kenyatta...Mr Kenyatta remains our king," he said.

In trying to explain how his life in the past over two years has been, Mr Gachagua while addressing worshippers last week in Meru County offered a peep into his Damascus moment.

Mr Gachagua disclosed that he was a bitter man before the 2022 General Election because of the challenges he faced. 

However, he narrated how he he had gradually healed following consistent prayers.

"I want to appeal to all leaders to embrace forgiveness, it is there in the Bible. I was badly wounded, humiliated, and persecuted before the elections. I came to office with bitterness but through prayers, and I thank my wife Pastor Dorcas over prayers, within one year I was a healed person. I have forgiven everybody who wronged me and I have asked everyone who I may have wronged to forgive me. There is nothing wrong with forgiving each other," remarked Mr Gachagua. 

A man who was seen as dyed in the Mt Kenya tribal colours is today trying to coordinate a national-faced contest formation that he says has leaders like Kalonzo Musyoka, George Natembeya, Dr Fred Matiang'i, Mr Okiya Omtatah, Eugene Wamalwa and others "goal being to ensure that President Ruto is a one term president".

A man who once dismissed a person like Mr Musyoka as "a politician who leads negligible votes that cannot take him anywhere" has today become Mr Gachagua's most critical ally.

As former police spokesman Mr Eric Kiraithe used to state to the effect that "don't tell me it is your politician who told you since if you checked most likely he had changed his mind before he had put the full stop to what he was telling you, only trust a dead politician's word".

Mr Kiraithe during his tenure would not tire reminding Kenyans that "politicians are a bouncing ball you will never be sure where they will bounce to once they hit the ground".