The night air in Karen hung thick with the scent of jacarandas and distant rain. Dari Business Park, a sprawling oasis of glass and greenery tucked along Ngong Road, had always been Raphael Tuju’s quiet kingdom.
Once a gleaming monument to ambition, restaurants buzzing with laughter, offices humming with deals, and the Tamarind at its heart, now stood on the edge of ruin.
A decade-old loan from the East African Development Bank, ballooned to nearly KSh 2.2 billion, had turned the dream into a battlefield.
Raphael Tuju, former Cabinet Secretary, former MP for Rarieda, and a man who had stared down political storms for years, was no stranger to pressure.
But nothing prepared him for 3 a.m. on Saturday, March 14. He awoke to the crunch of boots on gravel. Dozens of armed officers from the Rapid Response Unit poured through the gates like shadows come alive.
” Fellow Kenyans, it is is now 3:30 a.m. and I am still standing outside the gate. I have been kicked out by armed police officers who came in six unidentified vehicles.
This is pure impunity because they have no court orders to conduct such a raid.” he said.
Tuju further stated that they they did not disclose who they were and that they had covered their faces. ” they are conversing in their mother tongue and am wondering whether they are officers robbers or goons”
Five unmarked police vehicles blocked the entrance. No flashing lights. No sirens. Just the cold click of rifles and the low growl of orders.“Out. Now.”
Tuju stumbled into the compound in his nightclothes, phone in hand, recording the chaos.
“Where is the court order?” he demanded, voice cracking but steady. The officers said nothing. They simply moved him firmly, relentlessly toward the locked gate.
Behind him, staff and security scrambled, businesses that had operated peacefully for years now caught in the crossfire.
Twenty-five enterprises, livelihoods, dreams, sealed off in a single night. He stood outside under the streetlights, tears glinting in his eyes as a lone jogger paused mid-stride, placed a hand on his shoulder, and whispered a prayer.
“This is the law of the jungle,” Tuju told the gathering cameras and curious neighbors. “Impunity at its finest. But I will fight. We are at the Court of Appeal on Monday.”
The property, L.R. No. 1055/165 and its sister parcels had already survived one ugly skirmish earlier that week. Goons on motorbikes had swarmed the gates, trying to muscle their way in after the High Court cleared the path for auction.
Tuju had stared them down then too. Now the state itself had come calling in the dead of night. Inside the now-silent compound, the lights of the Tamarind Restaurant flickered off one by one.
The wellness sanctuary, the offices, the quiet corners where deals once sealed Kenya’s future all locked behind heavy chains.
As dawn broke over Karen, Tuju remained standing outside his own premises, phone still rolling, voice hoarse but unbroken.
This is a sacrifice for the truth,” he said quietly to the growing crowd. “They can take the buildings. They cannot take the fight.”
At distance, the Court of Appeal waited its Monday session now the only light left in the long shadow falling across Dari Business Park.
