Go forth Aisha, make the girl child proud!

When President William Ruto nominated Aisha Jumwa as to the Cabinet, many who did not know her well thought this was an overkill.

Why Aisha of all the millions of women in the Kenya Kwanza formation and the country in general! They wondered. We all thought Ms Jumwa was the typical Kenyan politician—noisy, verbose and good in combative verbal attacks against her political opponents—and we couldn’t be faulted for that because that is the image she had created for herself.

The Aisha Jumwa many knew was the eloquent Kiswahili speaker, who, together with her coastal home girl and Likoni MP Mishi Mboko, could, to use the word of National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula, bamboozle her audience and keep them yearning for more. One who could storm an opponent’s function and scatter it without a care in the world!

But her vetting for the position of Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action on October 18 revealed a different Aisha Jumwa.

The woman on the floor of Parliament that afternoon was one admirable human being, a woman every parent would admire, a woman every girl should emulate, a woman every labourer would envy. A legend of sorts.

A rendition of her life history here would help understand why I now hold Aisha Jumwa in awe.

Slim chances

The woman who is now a Cabinet minister and who, in her own confession, is worth Sh100 million, is the real meaning of coming from grass to grace.

Aisha was born in one of the poorest villages in the country to some of the poorest parents. She literally struggled to go through primary school and when time came for her secondary education, she stood very slim chances.

Eventually, she joined a local secondary school but could not complete the four years. She dropped out in Form Two because of lack of school fees and joined her large family in scrapping for something to eat.

Take note that for those two years of secondary education, she attended two schools in an attempt to dodge clearing fee arrears in the first.

Just over a year out of school, Aisha, just like many of the girls in the village, was married off against her will.

Her parents, like many others in her Kilifi neighbourhood, thought she was not adding much value to their lives and was better off married as this came with some few head of cattle and money as reverse dowry.

In her marriage, she got a child and her chances of furthering education was almost zero. From her narration before the parliamentary vetting committee, her world at that point in time revolved around the marriage and her child.

But her spirit of leadership always haunted her.

Elective politics

After a few years of being exclusively a mother and wife, Aisha could not hold on anymore. She ventured into community welfare activities and got into politics, which would drive tension in her marriage because the husband could not entertain his traditionally married wife exhibiting independence of thought, leave alone getting into elective politics that would entail competition with men.

Aisha chose to pursue her dream career and forego marriage. Being the proud woman she is, we hear she would buy and return the cows her parents had received from the man’s family as reverse dowry. Very few women have that kind of integrity.

Back to her progression in leadership and financial reinvention. Aisha Jumwa boasts a lot of firsts.

She was Kilifi’s first elected woman councillor (now member of county assembly), Kilifi town council’s first woman chairperson and clearly, the first woman Cabinet minister from the county. She could be the second one from the entire Coast region after Naomi Shaban.

It gets more interesting though.

After serving as councillor for two consecutive terms, Aisha became ambitious and contested the member of National Assembly seat for her local constituency (Kilifi South) but lost. It is at this point that she realised her limited education could limit her ambition. To use her own words, she decided to “rise from the past of ignorance and improve intellectually and spiritually”.

School dropout

At the age of 36, a mother and divorcee, Aisha went back to school. In 2011, she sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam. And from then, nothing seems able to stop her. She is currently pursuing a law degree. She has an executive master’s degree and bachelor’s in leadership and management.

On the national front, Aisha has risen from a woman representative to a member of Parliament for Malindi Constituency, and now the Cabinet Secretary. She also vied for Kilifi governor in the August 9 General Election but lost to Gideon Mung'aro.

The high school dropout and victim of forced marriage is now a member of the topmost council that runs the country. If that is not an inspiring individual to the young generation of girls—and even boys—in this country and the world, then I don’t know who is.

I will not be surprised if she turns out to be one of the best performing Cabinet Secretaries in history! Go forth Aisha and make the girl child proud!

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