Lamu Woman Representative Muthoni Marubu Monicah has withdrawn from the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), accusing Lamu Governor and UDA Deputy Party Leader Issa Timamy of political sabotage and ethnic exclusion.
In a letter dated August 11, 2026, addressed to Timamy, Marubu said she had decided to end her political engagement with UDA after what she described as sustained attempts to undermine her political activities in Lamu County.
Marubu said President William Ruto had earlier asked her to mobilise support for UDA in Lamu despite having been elected to Parliament on an independent ticket.
She said she subsequently spent three months organising grassroots activities across the county.
“I went ahead and did the work—three months of mobilisation and 42 grassroots meetings across the county, registering members and building support for a party that had won no elective seat in Lamu County in 2022,” she said.
According to Marubu, she reached out to Timamy six times during the mobilisation exercise but received no response and said the governor did not organise any grassroots mobilisation meeting.
She further claimed that attempts were later made to stop UDA grassroots elections in the county. Marubu said the elections proceeded after the UDA Elections Board declined efforts to halt them and that her team won overwhelmingly.
The legislator accused Timamy of attempting to reverse the grassroots election outcome because it did not favour his political interests.
“The selectivity of what followed makes your intentions difficult to disguise,” Marubu said, alleging that efforts to repeat the elections were being targeted only at Lamu West, which she described as her political stronghold, while Lamu East remained untouched.
“This is deliberate political sabotage,” she added. Marubu also raised concerns over what she termed unequal representation and inclusion in the county, citing public appointments, the replacement of Timamy’s late deputy governor and the condition of Mpeketoni Hospital.
She further referenced the 2014 Mpeketoni killings, in which nearly 100 people, mostly members of the Kikuyu community, were killed. Marubu noted that Timamy had been arrested following the attacks, which were widely perceived at the time as involving ethnic violence.
She said the issues had raised questions about whether all communities in Lamu were receiving equal consideration.
“Nobody chooses where to be born, and every Kenyan’s right to live and belong anywhere in this Republic is constitutionally guaranteed,” Marubu said.
“Ancestry does not determine belonging. The Constitution does. Lamu belongs equally to all its people.” Marubu also rejected an alleged argument that Kikuyus in Lamu were unlikely to support UDA and disputed claims that the people mobilised by her team were predominantly from one community. She said her mobilisation activities had covered different parts of the county, including Hindi, Witu and Kiunga.
“To dismiss an entire community as politically unreachable defeats the very purpose of political mobilisation,” she said. Marubu said she had initially intended to join UDA ahead of the 2027 General Election but had now withdrawn that intention.
“Neither I, my team nor my political allies will participate in further UDA mobilisation, grassroots elections or Party activities,” she said.
She declared that her political engagement with UDA had “formally and conclusively ended,” while promising to continue advocating for equitable inclusion and government services for all Lamu residents. Marubu also urged the UDA leadership to deregister candidates she said she had mobilised and return to the grassroots to conduct its own mobilisation.