Gachagua son: State House top officials visited me in prison

Jackson Kihara, before Justice Alexander Muteti at the Milimani Law Court, May 21, 2026. [David Gichuru, Standard]

Details have emerged at the High Court that senior government officials, including State House operatives and security officers, made covert visits to Manyani Maximum Security Prison at the height of the Rigathi Gachagua impeachment process in October 2024 and struck a deal with the jailed son of late Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua.

Jackson Kihara, who is serving a 20-year sentence for robbery with violence, told Justice Alexander Muteti that officials visited him seeking his cooperation on two fronts: obtaining information to be used in the impeachment of his uncle, then Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, and details regarding a disputed family property estate worth millions of shillings.

Kihara says he delivered. He said he gave the officials everything they asked for, including documents, information and full cooperation on the property dispute and the impeachment process.

Jackson Kihara, before Justice Alexander Muteti at the Milimani Law Court, May 21, 2026. [David Gichuru, Standard]

In return, he told the court, the state made him a promise that his safety would be guaranteed, and steps would be taken to secure his release from prison.

That was October 2024. Over one year and seven months later, he remains behind bars at Manyani, and no one, he says, has come back for him.

“I only decided to come forward after receiving assurances of protection from the government on October 11, 2024,” Kihara told Justice Muteti.

“I gave them what they wanted. But since then, nothing has been done to honour what was promised to me.”

Asked by the judge why he opted to seek a review of the sentence, Kihara insisted he had been promised safety by the government and freedom since October 2024 and that is why he was making the damning revelations.

However, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions denied the allegations. Prosecution counsel Mongere said the government had made no such promises, no assurances of safety, no pledge of assistance, and certainly no commitment to secure Kihara’s release.

“As the DPP, we are not aware of any such promises,” Mongere told the court.

But Kihara’s account paints a picture of a man who believes he was useful to the State during a moment of high political turbulence, then quietly abandoned once his usefulness expired.

He told the court that his troubles started years earlier when his father, Governor Nderitu Gachagua, was sick.

Kihara said that before his father died, he had entrusted him with documents relating to some of his properties and handed them over for safekeeping.

As the Governor lay in hospital in his final days, Rigathi demanded the documents. Kihara said he refused to have them over. “Had I disclosed to my uncle where the documents are, I would not be here today. I am in this situation because I declined to give my uncle documents entrusted to me by my late father,” he told the judge, insisting he was framed with the robbery with violence charges.