By Anderson Ojwang
One of the few Kenya’s soberest and ideology-driven politicians, former Cabinet Minister Raphael Tuju, has resigned from former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party of Kenya.
Tuju’s departure from Uhuru’s party deals it a major blow, leaving it to be more of a Mt Kenya party and could herald its death.
It is currently grappling with the idea of supporting former Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i as its presidential candidate. Matiang’i is yet to become even a party member and is yet to indicate which vehicle he will use in the 2027 election.
The ruling party, once vibrant and controlling both the Houses in the last Parliament and Senate and having an expansive centre, is currently limping and faces competition from the new kid on the block, DCP, that is neutralising its grip in the region.
Tuju, a no-nonsense politician, braved strong community and party hostility to remain in President Mwai Kibaki’s administration after a fallout between then LDP leader Raila Odinga and the President.
Raila has remained the de facto leader of the community, and any opposite views expressed by politicians usually translate into a loss in elections.
Tuju, despite initiating several projects in Rarieda, fell to the sword for sticking with Kibaki in the 2007 general election, but he was later appointed to the Cabinet.
Tuju remained on the government side and became a key ally and advisor to President Uhuru Kenyatta and was appointed to the Cabinet and later became the Jubilee Party Secretary-General.
Tuju is viewed as one of the community’s top leaders and likened to the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the late Tom Mboya, the late Argwings Kodhek, the late Achieng Oneko, among others, for his soberness and ideology-driven politics. Tuju, a journalist-turned-businessman and politician, is a polite but shrewd operator and is never driven by cheap fame and publicity.
Currently, Tuju has been one of the key pillars in Raila’s political dispensation, opting to play from the background and has maintained honesty in his political dealings and advisory role.
Tuju draws acceptability across the board in the community and nationally due to his non-controversial and issues-based politics.
In his resignation letter to Uhuru, he wrote “May I take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for having given me the opportunity to serve as the Jubilee Secretary-General from 2016 to 2022.
It was an exceptionally bold political step on your part to have entrusted this sensitive position to me as a person coming from the Luo tribe, while the anchor of the party was essentially the Kikuyu and Kalenjin tribes. Naively, many of us in the Jubilee expedition had thought and dreamed that we could build a National Party and a country that could make a transition from politics defined by ethnic mobilisation and polarisation. It was a bold attempt to confront the Kenyan political narrative of ‘Us against Them’. I and you shared some coincidences in the Kenyan political arena.
You suffered a defeat for being judged as not being a Kikuyu enough that led to your losing an election when you contested the Gatundu South Constituency under KANU.
I too lost the elections for the seat of MP for Rarieda for not being Luo enough and daring to be associated with PNU of President Kibaki.
After your handshake with Raila in 2018, it precipitated hostility between the Kalenjin wing and the Kikuyu wing of the Jubilee Party. To your credit, you shared with me and President Ruto the rationale for the handshake as being a way of building bridges and stabilising the country after the hostility of Raila swearing as the ‘People’s President’.
We were all awake to the fact that Kenya, then with all the prevailing hostilities, poverty, and the youth population bulge, had all the ingredients of becoming a failed state. It is needless to add that out of the top ten failed states globally, at least three of them are members of the East African Community.
The motivation for the handshake was to secure the peace in our beloved Kenya. Unfortunately, that handshake brought a lot of hostility between me and President Ruto despite several initiatives to bridge the gaps that the three of us are aware of before my almost fatal accident in 2020.
What I am satisfied about is that I remained loyal to you as the President, the Party Leader, and as a member of the Cabinet.
In the ever-evolving ironies of Kenyan politics, after the Gen-Z riots of 2024, President Ruto, now bearing the full responsibility of the weight of carrying the state, had to make compromises and do exactly what you had done in 2018; A handshake with Raila Odinga.
While I have been out of the country for the last 6 weeks, a lot seems to have happened with the Jubilee Party, and you have my best wishes.
This letter is to thank you and to pay tribute to our political association that dates back to the time when I worked with you under President Kibaki to create the PNU outfit.
We dared to dream and to be naive in the Kenyan political arena that we could go beyond tribe. I still hold dear onto those values of our shared humanity, beyond the easy tribal mobilisation of ‘Us against Them’. And I think it is good to be naive like our Gen Zs.
I believe that a time is coming when the Kenyans will be able to come together to confront the challenges of the youth population bulge that we talked about so many times.
The time will soon come when more Kenyans will understand that our enemy is lack of employment and dignified income and not the other tribe.
I hope that more Kenyans will be able to understand that even in the midst of so much misery and poverty, the potential of this country is up there. A situation analysis that makes the UN still transfer more of its operations out of New York to Nairobi cannot happen if there was no such potential.
I still look forward to working with you in future. However, at the present time, I see no more value that I can add to the Jubilee Party. I therefore tender my resignation.”
The question is, with Tuju’s resignation, what next in the game of chess?
