Listen There is something steely about Naomi Namsi Shaban’s demeanour. It is as if underneath her trademark colourful head wraps lies an impenetrable steel helmet made to deflect missiles directed at her in her decades long career in politics. This was not just a character attributed to her, but to the Mwai Kibaki Presidency and […]
Listen Described by critics as a carryover from a bygone era, William Ronkorua ole Ntimama was another unlikely member of the Kibaki Cabinet. A self-educated man who used his power of the tongue and warlike posturing to sustain himself at the top of Maasai land political hierarchy, Ntimama was one of only three ex-KANU (Kenya […]
Listen Samuel Losuron Poghisio joined the Cabinet in 2008, during President Mwai Kibaki’s second term. He was appointed following the National Accord that established a coalition government after the disputed presidential election of 2007, in which Kibaki had been declared the winner. Poghisio was given the influential docket of Information and Communication, which was surprising […]
Listen When he was born to Ngina Muhoho and Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in the dying days of the colonial administration in October 1961, it was Mwai Kibaki, then the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) Executive Officer, who suggested that he be named ‘Uhuru’. That was in commemoration of the imminent dawn of uhuru or independence […]
Listen In Kenya, Cabinet positions cannot be said to carry equal weight – or that they are one and the same. Each portfolio has its own influence and clout, and this perhaps explains why appointments to certain Cabinet positions have been a scramble. Of note are ministries of finance, internal security, health, energy and power […]
Listen As the biblical story goes, Noah was chosen to perpetuate the human race, leaving his wicked contemporaries to perish in a deluge. Tasked with building an ark to house the chosen few, the patriarch also let in all animals, male and female, according to God’s commandment. Fast-forward to the story of the National Rainbow […]
Listen Suleiman Rashid Shakombo was a totally unknown entity in Likoni before he entered the political arena in 1997. He left the Provincial Administration and, backed by an unfamiliar party, unseated Khalif Salim Mwavumo who was from the more familiar Forum for the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya (FORD-Kenya) party that five years earlier in 1992 had […]
Listen Newton Wanjala Kulundu, the medic-turned-politician, was easy to underestimate. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Lurambi, a constituency carved out of the then larger Kakamega District (now Kakamega County) at independence, had a somewhat laboured manner of speech that underlined humble beginnings and rural schooling. It wouldn’t be a misnomer to claim that Kulundu […]
Listen Peter Soita Shitanda epitomized what it meant to be a Cabinet Minister in President Mwai Kibaki’s government. Like his boss, he was nearly obsessive with his work and knew the ins and outs, the hits and misses and most importantly, the buttons to constantly keep under the pressure of his thumb. And, like the […]
Listen Moses Masika Wetangula joined President Mwai Kibaki’s Cabinet in 2008 as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Deputising him at the ministry were Richard Onyonka as Assistant Minister and Mwangi Thuita as Permanent Secretary. Before he became a Minister, replacing Raphael Tuju, he was the Assistant Minister for five years – from June 2003 to January […]