A Nairobi conference on Friday, September 6, 2024, brought out arguably some of the toughest women in the Kenyan political landscape.
The event dubbed Women, Power and Change, united some of the female leaders in the country who have taken a rebellious path and committed to it, throwing all caution to the wind.
Gathoni Wamuchomba
“Bad girls,” was the caption for Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba in a photo she took together with Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo-Mabona who is a sworn bad girl.
While Millie has been candid with her brand of politics which she says earned her a fourth term she currently serves at the National Assembly, Wamuchomba is the voice of rebellion in the restive Kiambu County and perhaps the entire Mt Kenya region.
At one point, she had to be pointed out to shape up or face disciplinary action by the former UDA secretary-general Cleophas Malalah, who had singled her out among other politicians for criticising the ruling regime’s policies.
“I want to tell the powers that be that I am not in the group of women whose voice you can suppress,” Wamuchomba noted in an interview with a local daily.
At the height of the controversial Finance Bill 2024, Wamuchomba went against the grain to voice her opposition at a time when UDA MPs cowered in fear.
Wamuchomba still maintains her reservations about the housing levy which was noted that is set to benefit a handful of state functionaries closer to power.
She notes that the government’s decision to tax citizens, build houses on public land and then sell the apartments to the same citizens whose taxes built them is illogical.
Wamuchomba is a holder of a Master’s degree and is pursuing her doctorate studies at the University of Nairobi.
Millie Odhiambo
Coming back to Bad Girl 001, Millie, the politician is the current Minority Whip in the National Assembly just weeks after she confronted Speaker Moses Wetangula who advised her to be a good girl and a role model to the younger female folk.
“Mr Speaker, if they’re good girls, they’ll never get the corner office, be as bad as Millie Odhiambo, you will be the mother of this House. I am a bad girl, and as a bad girl I’m here serving my fourth term; so do not be cheated like the African culture where you’re told to have decorum, dress nicely, be kind, be nice…I’m telling you you’ll go nowhere, be a bad girl like me and you’ll get somewhere,” Odhiambo said.
Just recently during the thanksgiving ceremony for Treasury CS John Mbadi in Magunga, Suba South, Odhiambo requested President William Ruto to let her be the bad girl she is even in the broad-based government.
Odhiambo urges girls to cast away their demure attitude if they should achieve anything worthwhile in life.
Martha Karua
Branded Kenya’s ‘Iron Lady’ – a phrase she says she loathes due to its ‘misogynistic undertones’- Karua is one of the most fearless female politicians in the country.
Her rebellion started during the Moi era when male politicians routinely kneeled to have the audience of the President, but not Karua.
During a 2001 rally in Kirinyaga where Moi was the guest speaker, Karua walked out of the meeting in the full presence of the former president and the press after State House handlers at the time denied her an opportunity to respond to comments made against then-opposition leader Mwai Kibaki.
During the Kibaki era, Karua resigned from her cabinet position after she complained of a plot to undermine the reforms she was driving at the Ministry of Justice.
Karua has never shied from walking away from tables where respect was no longer on the menu, with the latest being her decision to exit the Azimio la Umoja coalition after their coalition party leader Raila Odinga entered into a sweet deal with Ruto.
