Speaking truth to power: The women taking the bold step from within
Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba. Despite being a member of the ruling coalition, she has been a thorn in the side of the Kenya Kwanza administration over what she terms unfair policies.
What you need to know:
- In Afghanistan, women cannot even show their faces in public or travel beyond 72km without the company of a close male family member, and criticising the Taliban is equivalent to pronouncing yourself dead.
- In Uganda, a women’s rights activist, was sentenced to an 18-month jail term for calling Mr Museveni a “dirty delinquent dictator,” who had “corroded all morality and professionalism out of our public institutions”.
Openly opposing a country’s leadership or regime is not new, what’s new is women standing up to regimes dominated by men.
Take Afghanistan, for example. Women cannot even show their faces in public or travel beyond 72km without the company of a close male family member. Here, criticising the Taliban is equivalent to pronouncing yourself dead.
In January, 2023, former Wolesi member of parliament (MP) Mursal Nabizada, described in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as an outspoken critic of the Taliban, was killed by gunmen at her home in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.
She was one of the few women MPs who had remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
In Uganda, being a president's critic is like seeing a jail door opening.
Stella Nyanzi, a women’s rights activist, was sentenced to an 18-month jail term for calling President Yoweri Museveni a “dirty delinquent dictator,” who had “corroded all morality and professionalism out of our public institutions”.
In Kenya, faulting the powers that be comes with an eighth sense, especially when one is a member of the ruling party or holding key state office.
In October last year, Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o revealed to the National Dialogue Committee the salary heist implicating the National Treasury.
Also read: The women politicians making a mark
She said the National Treasury had been over-budgeting salaries of senior government officials paid through the Consolidated Fund Services (CFS).
The officials include the President, his deputy and state officers in constitutional commissions and independent offices, only for the amounts to disappear during the supplementary budgets.
“When I was doing the budget for CFS, where I am paid from, I found out that my salary was budgeted at three times what I am paid.
"I am the only state officer in my institution and so there is nothing like confusion there.
"I asked…and have not received the answer to date,” she told the committee on October 31, 2023.
A month later, she was arrested on the grounds of fraud.
She was accused, alongside 10 others who never appeared in Mombasa chief magistrate’s court, of falsely defrauding Claudia Mueni Mutungi of Sh29 million.
She was also accused of forgery and operating a Sacco without a licence.
However, the High Court in Nairobi suspended her prosecution until May this year when a petition filed by West Mugirango MP Stephen Mogaka will be heard.
The MP moved to court arguing that the arrest and prosecution were meant to embarrass, harass and put her to shame for ulterior motives.
Going against the same grain is Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba, elected on a United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party ticket.
Since last year, she remained steadfast in her criticism of President William Ruto’s leadership – from the Finance Bill (now a law), housing levy, affordable housing project, to the skyrocketing cost of living.
While Dr Ruto dared MPs from Kenya Kwanza (which includes UDA) to oppose the bill in Parliament, Ms Wamuchomba voted against it, though it was passed.
Also read: Why women’s leadership matters
The law imposed a 1.5 per cent housing levy on salaried individuals, money the President says is used to implement his flagship scheme: the affordable housing project.
But in November, the High Court declared the levy illegal and unconstitutional. Nevertheless, it allowed the government to continue collecting the levy until January 10, 2024.
Aggrieved, the government petitioned the Court of Appeal for an overturn. But last month, the court declined to extend the deadline.
Dr Ruto has maintained that the housing project is unstoppable, even indicating that he would disobey the rulings. But this has not stopped Ms Wamuchomba from fiercely opposing the project.
During an interview on KTN News on January 25, 2024, she described the project as “the biggest scam in the history of this country".
Four years ago, Alice Wahome, the current Lands Cabinet Secretary, was similarly in the uncharted waters. Then Kandara MP elected through former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party, she would openly tell off the Head of State, something many ruling party politicians wouldn’t dare do.
Unforgettable is her ruthless remarks against Mr Kenyatta in January 2020, when she said he was mismanaging Kenya's economy, describing him as the “biggest existential threat to Kenya’s declining economy, democracy and freedom of speech”.
This was part of a castigatory poem she had posted on her Facebook account in 2018. Mr Museveni has led Uganda since 1986.
Then comes the National Gender and Equality Commission chairperson, Dr Joyce Mutinda. She never shies from questioning the government’s commitment to the gender equality agenda.
Last year, when I interviewed her on the progress the government is making towards fighting gender-based violence (GBV), she was blunt when she talked about Policare, a model system launched in 2021 by National Police Service to offer all GBV-related services under one roof.
“I expected us to move faster, particularly when we started Policare. But it seems Policare is growing cold; we must resuscitate it,” she said.
Recently, she participated in a morning show on Citizen TV and questioned the fidelity of the taskforce set up with the mandate of leading the country to the enactment of a law on two-thirds gender principle provided in the Constitution.
“The current government did promise us that within one year there would be this legislation [on two-thirds gender principle] ... It started very well,” she said during show on February 7, 2024.
“The Ministry of Gender, Arts, Culture and Heritage put up a taskforce, but what has happened? It has been infiltrated to an extent that as we talk, if I talked to Harriet (Chiggai, the President’s Adviser on Women’s Rights Agency), she would tell me she doesn’t know what is happening.”
