Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Sunday night opened up on his unrelating battle against the sale of illicit liquor explaining how alcohol abuse robbed him of his only brother.
The DP revealed for the first time how he often finds himself lonely since all his brothers are now dead, with the only living one passing away in September 2022 after consuming liqour.
“Now I am just alone; I live with the police,” he said during an appearance on Inooro TV.
“I have no one from our family; I have nothing. It’s just the police. When I go home, I can only stare at the graves,” Gachagua remarked.
He said Second Lady Dorcas’ efforts to tackle alcohol addiction by supporting rehabilitation are informed by the anguish his family suffered.
“When we fight this alcohol, it’s not politics. We are speaking while experiencing so much pain in the heart because we have seen what alcohol has done to us, our neighbours, and our friends,” he said.
In the interview, Gachagua shared that he last saw his elder brother alive when they visited him after he was sworn in as the deputy president.
“He (his brother) used to drink alcohol. I tried to get him treated in a hospital here in Karen, but he’d go back to alcohol,” he narrated.
“After we were sworn in, me as the deputy president, they came to my home here in Nairobi with other people. As they were going home, because I was very happy, I gave them each a small amount of money so that they would eat on their way home. The next time I saw him, he was in a casket because he went to drink.”
The deputy president said the death of his elder brother left him in a sad state, as he now lacks a sibling to talk with.
Gachagua is on record saying he is ready to pay the ultimate price in the ongoing campaign by the government targeting markers of unlicensed second-generation alcohol.