Kositany, Tuju lock horns over DP, Jubilee

The cracks within Jubilee Party have widened after its leadership disagreed over direction the party was taking.

Party Secretary General Raphael Tuju and his deputy Caleb Kositany appeared on Citizen TV, where they locked horns over import of comments made by two MPs and party affairs.

Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi and Emurua Dikirr MP Johana Ng’eno have been in the eye of the storm over comments allegedly directed to the President’s family.

Ng’eno was on Tuesday charged in a Nakuru court with hate speech and offensive conduct.

Kositany was triggered by Tuju, who inferred that Sudi and Ng’eno were speaking the Deputy President William Ruto’s thoughts and that the DP’s subsequent tweet condemning the utterances of the duo was not sufficient to reduce the damage.

Tuju, referring to the incident as ‘an unacceptable new low’, said he had called the Deputy President over the issue and suggested that Ruto had attempted to brush it aside.

“We discussed it and I made my position clear because some of these things are being done using his name,” the Secretary General said.

Ruto tweet

Ruto’s response, said Tuju, was to say that he had tweeted his condemnation and compare Sudi and Ng’eno’s statements to personal attacks on him.

“You cannot compare the issue of David Murathe with comments on the former First Lady. There is no way to equate the two. I told him that I don’t think tweeting about it is going to satisfy a lot of people,” Tuju said in the Tuesday night interview.

While Kositany condemned Ng’eno and Sudi’s utterances, he also termed double standards claims that the two MPs spoke on behalf of Ruto, while other leaders who made disparaging comments about Ruto were assumed to speak for themselves.

“Why are we trying to say that Sudi or Ng’eno spoke on behalf of the DP? Who does Murathe speak for? And who was Tobiko (Environment CS Keriako) speaking on behalf of when he called the DP a clerk? Was Babu Owino speaking on behalf of Raila when he insulted the President?” Kositany posed. 

While this is just the most recent incident to threaten Jubilee Party’s shaky foundation, Tuju suggested that the root cause of the wrangles in the party were ideological differences and signaled that they were willing to let the party collapse if it was the obstacle to the Building Bridges Initiative.