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Raphael Tuju reveals his mother’s dream of him becoming a Catholic priest
24th January, 2026 02:36 AM
Former Cabinet Secretary Raphael Tuju has opened up about a deeply personal chapter of his childhood, revealing that his mother once believed he was destined to become a Catholic priest.
Speaking during a candid conversation at Engage Talk, Tuju recalled that when he was about five or six years old, he fell seriously ill at a time when his younger brother had been diagnosed with sickle-cell anaemia and was not expected to live much longer.
“When I was about 5 or 6 years of age, I became very ill, and my kid brother had been diagnosed with sickle-cell anaemia and was not expected to live much longer. When he was 11 years of age, he passed on,” Tuju revealed.
He revealed that Catholic priests were brought to pray for him, believing he might not survive. However, he recovered, while his younger brother continued to battle illness and later died.
“At age 6, I was my mother’s only hope, and yet I fell very sick. I was admitted to Maseno, and all the chances were that I was never going to survive, so the Catholic priests were brought to say the prayers so that if I were to go, God would receive me,” he added.
“I survived, and my mother prayed because my younger brother was dying; he was sick every day, and he later died.”
Moved by the ordeal, Tuju said his mother dedicated him to God and promised that she would raise him to become a Catholic priest.
Additionally, the former Jubilee Secretary General added that his mother was deeply disappointed when she later realised that he would not become a Catholic priest, as she had once hoped.
“My mother prayed and dedicated me and promised God that she would bring me up to become a priest. Unfortunately, I am not Father Raphael, and she was very disappointed,” he revealed.
Surviving tragic accidents
Apart from battling illness during his childhood, Tuju also shared a harrowing account of surviving a plane crash in Busia County, shortly after he entered politics.
“Shortly after I went into politics, there was a plane crash, and I was in that plane, and my mother said, ‘You see, I told you that you should have been a priest,’” Tuju revealed.
“That plane should have exploded because it hit the power line, but it did not because there was power in Busia at that time; however, the power lines slowed the crash of the plane, and it ended up falling on the roof.”
“I survived a plane crash, but the other tragedy that I went through was five years ago, when I survived a car crash, in which I had 18 fractures, three of them being on my vertebrae, and intestinal damage that had to be operated on immediately, otherwise I was going to bleed to death,” he reflected.
