The state has no more important function than the security and welfare of its citizens and all those who live within its borders.

In constitutional and political theory the state’s minimum raison d’etre is to protect the people and their property. A state that fails this basic test has lost its rationale for existence, and has no reasonable expectation of loyalty from those under its suzerainty. That’s why above all else, state legitimacy rests on the consent of the people, and which consent is obtained when the state fulfils the basic functions of statehood. It thus behooves the political class and the intelligentsia to promote and uphold key state institutions. It’s treasonous for a citizen to purposely take a mallet to legitimate institutions of security.

I have been stupefied by the proclivity of impeached former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s boisterous temerity to say and do anything to delegitimise the Kenyan state. Of course citizens have every right – as encapsulated in Kenya’s constitution and its laws – to robustly and loudly critique the state and the policies of the government of the day. That’s an ironclad fundamental right in a democracy, of which Kenya is a variant. It’s the foundation of the consent of the governed. No less. But the constitution also protects the state from those who would maliciously and unconstitutionally seek to collapse it. That’s why there are constitutional and lawful limits on what a citizen can say or do. Not everything goes.

Undermining state security

We have all seen what happens when there is failure of security. The consequences are often catastrophic for innocents. Take, for example, the 1998 Al Qaeda bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. Scores were killed and many maimed. Even on a more widespread scale, in the Al Qaeda decimation of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001 we saw what a weaponized passenger aircraft can do in the hands of a terrorist. These are eye-popping examples of the failure of state security. It’s the little guy – the citizen – who bears the brunt of it all. It’s the reason no one who is a responsible citizen should ever undermine legitimate state security, the foundation of any state.

I am afraid, however, that’s exactly what Mr Gachagua and his acolytes are doing to the Kenyan state. He, and his minions, has a motor mouth which runs at hundred miles an hour. The man spits the most poisonous of venoms every time his opens his mouth. Contorting his mouth and his face to evoke the most bilious disdain, Mr Gachagua has become the epitome of nasty. You can be sure that every fifth word he utters has President William Ruto in the sentence. I have never seen – and I’ve seen plenty of unhinged folks – anyone emit the nuclear bile Mr Gachagua does.

Methinks it’s time for the state to call Mr Gachagua to order and return him to his senses as a citizen. I agree Mr Gachagua isn’t alone. While he’s the lord of the dragon flies, there are others in his column and the side opposite whose minds are wired for hate. That said, he’s the king of the school of hate. He has no equal in Africa south or north of the Sahara. That’s saying a lot because Africa has many hateful potentates. Mr Gachagua is the stuff of which demagogues who aspire to the most maniacal dictatorships are made. Imagine the fellow atop any state. It would be the most catastrophic reign of any Kenyan state. He makes Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic look like a Boy Scout.

Unfit to hold office

At the onset of the Gen Z protests a couple of years ago, Mr Gachagua uncorked a torrent of unhinged attacks on the intelligence community, and especially the National Intelligence Service and its head Noordin Haji. I thought his epithet-filled attack amounted to treason. That alone was evidence in my books of a serious problem. The man is simply unfit to hold office. You don’t as Deputy President attack in a public tirade the head of the most revered security agency in the country. No – you just don’t do it. No matter the reason. The strange thing is that Mr Gachagua didn’t stop there. He has often doubled down. The man clearly has some sort of congenital mental condition.

In recent days, Mr Gachagua has ratcheted up his attacks on key state institutions and officers. Without batting an eyelid, he recently alleged – without evidence – that he regularly receives top secret briefings of key state secrets from his moles at NIS. That was incredulous. If so, why would he out his informants? There is only one reason for this – to undermine NIS, its officers, and leadership. That alone should lead to his arrest and prosecution. Undermining NIS is totally reckless.

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua