To some she was a rebel without a cause and to some she was a Kenyan heroine!
Wambui Otieno, the late widow of the late criminal lawyer, Silvano Melea Otieno, will be laid to rest Thursday, 8th September, and I am wondering whether the Kenyan society was really fair to her.
Wambui Otieno has been eulogized by many, locally and internationally, as a heroine of this country. One may ask, why didn’t Kenyans recognize and award her while she was alive, at least, for giving her youth and life to the struggle for independence of this country?
Reading about Wambui, one gets the feeling that she died not having achieved what she wanted to achieve most in life – being elected into political office. The media has reported that she contested and lost elections in 1969, 1974, 1997 and 2007 in Nairobi and Kajiado.
Is her life story a reflection of the thinking of the Kenyan society, which is highly patriarchal? Is this the reason why some people have previously described the late Wambui as a rebel without a cause? It is reported that she left the comfort of her family, to join the Mau Mau as a conveyor of weapons and gatherer of intelligence. (Wambui was the daughter of the late Tirus Munyua Waiyaki and a granddaughter of the late Waiyaki wa Hinga. Obviously, she comes from a rich dynasty).
The fact that she could risk her life by joining the Mau Mau, when she had the option of wallowing in the comfort of her parent’s home speaks a lot about the kind of spirit she had. Yet she did not stop there. Later on in her life, she met the late lawyer, who had just come from studies in India, feel in love and married him. This was against the wish of her parents, who did not think it right for her, a Kikuyu, to marry a Luo.
At the time of her marriage in 1963, again going against the grain, she decided that no bride price would be paid to her family. Her family did not like it but they swallowed their pride and gave her her wish.
In 2003, many years after the death of her husband, she shocked many when she announced her wedding to one Peter Mbugua, a young man old enough to be her grandson. That was Wambui for you!
But even with her record for having fought for the independence of this country, it seems that the Kenyan society was not ready for the kind of person that Wambui was. Her kind of independent-mindedness seemed not to be appreciated by the society.
I remember around the time when she was to wed Mbugua, even some of her children and relatives were against the idea. Even Mbugua’s mother was reported to have been against that idea. Some people even tried to link Mbugua’s mother death a few months later to that uncommon union. No one can tell for sure whether the two events were connected.
One thing that Wambui died not having accomplished was her desire for an elective political position. Why was the Kenyan society so mean to Wambui? Does it mean that our male dominated politics and society cannot accommodate tough and decisive women as Wambui?
Even in death, Wambui seems to stoke controversy. In yesterday’s Star newspaper ‘new voices’ section of the newspaper, a majority of the people whose opinion was ought on where Wambui should be buried said that she ought to be buried in her late husband’s home in Nyalgunga, Siaya County.
But this will not happen since Wambui had pointed out her burial place in Upper Matasia in Ngong a number of years back.
The one conclusion that can be made from a study of Wambui’s life is that she lived ahead of her time and that is why the Kenyan society could neither contain nor accept her.
NB: An edited version of this article appeared in the Star newspaper of 9th September, 2011, as LETTER OF THE DAY.
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