Gachagua's words on Kenya's dirty secrets should alarm us

The chorus of government defenders is loud and predictable: how dare former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua “discuss his country on foreign soil”?

To them, the mere act of speaking uncomfortable truths before a foreign audience amounts to betrayal. But is it?, silence in the face of rot is the real betrayal. Speaking truth, whether in Nairobi or Washington, is not treason. It is patriotism of the highest order. 

What Gachagua said in the US is not new. It is an uncomfortable truth many Kenyans, investigative journalists, and international institutions have documented for years: that our country has been captured by a network of politicians, military officers, and criminal cartels who profit from smuggling, terrorism and organised crime. The problem is not that he spoke out. The problem is that what he said is true, and that truth threatens the powerful.

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Take Jacob Rasmussen’s report, Sweet Secret Deal. It documents how in 2014 alone, Kenya accounted for 150,000 tons of sugar smuggled from Somalia. That smuggling generated an astonishing $400 million in revenue. The report is explicit: the money was shared between Al-Shabaab operatives, Kenyan politicians, and sections of our military officers. This is not conspiracy. It is documented research.

Yet, while we mourned the death of Mumias Sugar Company and collapse of local cane farming, our leaders were busy profiteering from illicit sugar imports. Even the Institute for Security Studies reported that in 2020, sugar made up 48 per cent of all goods smuggled into Kenya. These are not backyard smugglers operating handcarts at the border. These are powerful networks protected by state machinery. 

Let us remember the chilling moment in 2015, after the Garissa University College attack that claimed 148 young lives. Then Majority Leader Aden Duale, now Cabinet Secretary for Health, declared that he would release the names of Al-Shabaab sympathisers and masterminds. The country waited. The names never came. Northern leaders kept threatening to expose sympathisers. Up to today, silence. In that silence, Kenyans have continued to bleed. 

So when Gachagua says out loud what others fear to whisper, that Kenya’s political elite are entangled in networks that fund terrorism why should that be treated as treason? Shouldn’t it be an urgent wake-up call? 

It does not end with sugar. Another report, All That Glitters by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, lays bare Kenya’s role in gold smuggling. Our airports, especially JKIA, are a hub where gold smuggled from Sudan, Congo, and other landlocked African nations is moved discreetly to Dubai. No ordinary citizen could run such a sophisticated operation. This is the handiwork of individuals protected at the highest levels of state. 

And it ties directly into our compromised foreign policy. Kenya’s involvement in Sudan, including cozy relations with the Rapid Support Forces and their leader Hemeti, is no secret. We hosted him at KICC. We allowed our territory to be used for suspected arms smuggling. A US senator even warned that Kenya was undermining peace in Sudan. The consequences are now evident, our agricultural exports to Sudan have been banned, hurting Kenyan farmers. 

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Nairobi has, tragically, become one of the world’s hubs for illicit economies. From arms trafficking, to human trafficking, to child sex trafficking, the evidence is overwhelming. BBC recently exposed the shocking depth of child sex trafficking networks operating locally. International watchdogs identify Nairobi as a transit and investment hub for South Sudanese warlords, who funnel looted billions from Juba into real estate in Lavington and Runda. 

If Kenya was serious about its international obligations to the UN, to the AU, to treaties against genocide and transnational crime, why are we hosting warlords and kleptocrats in five-star comfort? Why are we looking the other way as they use Nairobi as a safe haven?

The hypocrisy of those attacking Gachagua for speaking abroad must be confronted. Patriotism is not silence in the face of state capture. Patriotism is not burying your head while your country becomes a hub of terrorism financing, smuggling, and exploitation. True patriotism is calling it out, loudly and unapologetically, wherever and whenever the truth must be told. 

Those who accuse him of “washing dirty linen in public” miss the point. Our linen is not just dirty. It is bloodstained. The rot has metastasized to the point that it endangers regional security, undermines our farmers, compromises our military, and erodes our international credibility. To insist on silence is to insist on complicity. 

Kenya is at a dangerous crossroads. The economy is collapsing under debt. Farmers are betrayed by illicit trade. Our foreign policy is compromised by backroom dealings with warlords and militias. Our young people are trapped in cycles of joblessness, exploited by human traffickers, and sacrificed in terrorist attacks funded by the very networks that operate freely here. 

To pretend that everything is fine to silence those who dare to speak. Is to accelerate our march toward state failure.