It is highly unlikely that Tuju was running away from his own shadow

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The events surrounding the dramatic disappearance and equally dramatic resurfacing of former Cabinet Secretary Raphael Tuju should worry every Kenyan who values the rule of law, personal security, and the idea that Kenya should not be governed by fear.

Mr Tuju and his driver, Steve Mwanga, vanished on Saturday evening. His vehicle was found abandoned along Miotoni Lane in Karen, Nairobi. He had been due for a scheduled interview at Ramogi FM, but never showed up and could not be reached. By Sunday, Kenya was gripped with anxiety about what could have happened to him.

We now know. He was not abducted. He was hiding; a man so frightened for his life that he found it safer to disappear into the shadows than to walk openly in his own country. A former Cabinet Secretary, a man who has served this republic at the highest levels, felt compelled to go underground because he did not feel safe. That is a national indictment.

His fear did not arise from nowhere. The alarm had been building since Friday, when Tuju reportedly noticed he was being trailed by a white Toyota Land Cruiser with no number plates — sinister enough to make any reasonable person’s blood run cold. Days earlier, more than 100 police officers had raided his Dari Business Park in the early hours of the morning, some arriving in vehicles without number plates and wearing balaclavas to conceal their identities.

Before he vanished, Tuju wrote to Inspector General Douglas Kanja protesting the unlawful occupation of his property and seeking protection. A man who petitions the Inspector General, fearing for his safety, does not scare easily. We have seen this pattern before. Lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their driver Joseph Muiruri disappeared in 2016, only for their bodies to be found stuffed in a sack in the Ol-Donyo Sabuk River.

In 2023, sugar baron Jaswant Singh Rai was bundled into a vehicle along Wood Avenue in Kilimani by men widely believed to be law enforcers and his own car was abandoned at the scene. The abandoned vehicle has become something of a calling card in Kenya’s theatre of intimidation.

Tuju is safe, which is a relief, but his safety does not dissolve the questions his ordeal raises. Why did a prominent citizen feel compelled to hide rather than call the police? What does it say about the state of public confidence in law enforcement when a man in genuine fear turns away from the very institution mandated to protect him?

The midnight raids by masked officers in numberless vehicles, the alleged attempts to depossess him of his Karen property, the tailing by suspicious vehicles — none of this has been explained, let alone accounted for. Going by these events, it is highly unlikely, unless investigations prove otherwise, that Tuju was running away from his own shadow. Police must get to the bottom of this matter. They must conduct investigations with the aim of arresting those who have been trailing Tuju.

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