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Gachoka, according to close family members battered his wife, Priscilla Njoka
On September 7, 2008, when controversial political analyst and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s aide, Tony Gachoka, turned 36, his children woke up early in their Westlands Rhapta Road six-bedroom house to surprise daddy.
Each of them had a present, carefully chosen. With breakfast on a tray, and gifts in their hands, they opened the door and trooped into Gachoka’s master bedroom ready to sing happy birthday in unison. But they froze in their tracks, mouths wide open in shock.
Sprawled on the king-size bed, was their father, with two women later identified as air hostesses. Gachoka, crawled out of bed, glared sharply at them and banged the bedroom door shut in their faces.
Gachoka is a well-schooled, intelligent and articulate man who cuts the image of a flamboyant, generous wealthy businessman with deep connections that go up to State House.
But according to several family members who approached The Nairobian because they are concerned about Gachoka and his family, the man’s high octane political persona, his connections in high places and privileged upbringing, mask a deeply flawed, tragic and drunken figure – the reckless and irresponsible prince who inherited an empire and drove it into ruin.
On the night of August 15, 2015, for instance, Gachoka spent hundreds of thousands of shillings ‘appreciating’ good music from artistes Stella Mwangi (STL) and Just A Band on Industry Nite at Galileo Lounge. What fellow revellers could never have guessed is that as they were partying, that night, Gachoka’s wife and three children crawled into bed on empty stomachs.
Pictures on social media showed him dishing out money to musicians. He showed up at home three days later, dumped a bag of food on the floor and left. But that food, it seemed, had stayed in the car for too long, and the milk had gone bad, the beef, sausages and chicken were rotten and the bread was stale.
Concerned relatives however, say that could be excusable, if Gachoka didn’t batter his wife, Priscilla Njoka, in front of the children. Apparently, the beatings started when the children were still toddlers.
“It reached appoint where he would summon the children and make them watch as he battered their mother. Sometime in 2014, when his son tried to intervene, he got a beating of a lifetime. The children are traumatised and all their relatives avoid them because no one wants to engage Gachoka in a war,” one of Gachoka’s blood relatives says.
So troubled are Gachoka’s children that on January 24 this year, his second born son suffered a breakdown and tried to commit suicide at a students’ hostel along Thika Road. The Nairobian spoke to witnesses who say the young man started shouting and asking for someone to save them from their father.
“He was frothing at the mouth, shouting very aggressive. He wanted to jump off the balcony. Good Samaritans took him to a hospital nearby where he was diagnosed with depression,” says another relative. The Nairobian has hospital records showing the young man who was hospitalised for a week, before he got better and picked by his mother. The hospital bill was footed by his son’s friends and relatives.
Gachoka never visited his son in hospital. In fact on January 30, 2017, when he was discharged, his father was taking delivery of a Mercedes coupe that he had ordered and paid for.
It is hard to believe that the poor boy, grandson of a millionaire who educated his kids in the finest schools including overseas, actually had to drop out of high school for lack of fees.
“We had to home-school the boy because his father totally refused to pay his school fees, which led to him being kicked out of school. We did our best to give him education. His daughter, from 2011 to date, has never finished university because of school fees,” narrated a relative.
According to Gachoka’s close relatives, the man only pays school fees for his last-born child, who is at a prestigious boarding school in South Africa.
“He is into his teens and didn’t see much of his father’s brutality in the past 15 years. He adores his father and has never questioned anything, unlike his brothers and sister,” revealed our source.