Former Jubilee Party Secretary General Raphael Tuju has officially severed ties with the party, bringing an end to a political alliance with former President Uhuru Kenyatta dating back almost two decades.

Tuju, in a resignation letter written on August 19 and addressed to the Jubilee Party leader, Tuju expressed appreciation to him for having entrusted him with the powerful secretary general position between 2016 and 2022. He copied the letter to the current secretary general Jeremiah Kioni.

Tuju described his appointment as an exceptionally bold political step, noting that handing the powerful position to a Luo politician was unprecedented in a party whose strength largely rested on Kikuyu and Kalenjin support.

“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 mobilization and polarization,” he reflected.

Tuju revisited the March 2018 Handshake between Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga, which dramatically shifted Jubilee’s internal balance. He defended the pact as a necessary tool to stabilize a nation on the edge after Odinga’s symbolic swearing-in.

“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,” Tuju admitted.

He pointed out the irony that President Ruto himself, following the Gen Z protests of 2024, was eventually forced to pursue his own handshake with Raila Odinga – mirroring Kenyatta’s move six years earlier to ease political tension.

The former Rarieda MP remembered his coalition with Kenyatta from the time of the late President Mwai Kibaki under the Party of National Unity (PNU). He explained how the two of them had been rejected by their people for seeking to transcend ethnic politics.

Kenyatta, he claimed, was branded “not Kikuyu enough” when he first contested Gatundu South on a KANU ticket, and Tuju himself was set aside as “not Luo enough” when he set his sights on the Rarieda seat on a PNU ticket in 2007.

Despite unrest and personal adversity, including his near-fatal road accident in 2020, Tuju claimed to have stood by Kenyatta.

In his resignation letter, Tuju expressed optimism that Kenya’s salvation lies in moving beyond tribal divisions to tackle urgent social and economic struggles.

“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,” he wrote.

Despite leaving the Jubilee Party, Tuju intimated that his journey with Kenyatta has not yet come to an end. He disclosed that he still anticipates working with the former President in other capacities. However, he concluded that he sees no more value he can add to Jubilee, prompting his decision to resign.