UDA nominated Senator Essy Okenyuri aka Nyaituga says she is the perfected illustration of the party's bottom-up mantra: From a remote village in Bomachoge Borabu to the Capital as a legislator.
Speaking to the Star on Tuesday, Senator Okenyuri — who distastes the prefix Mheshimiwa, preferring to be referred as Essy — said her leadership qualities are inborn, and she has been a leader since she was in primary school.
She joined the Senate are a replacement for Soipan Tuya, who was appointed by President William Ruto as Environment Cabinet Secretary.
Alongside her Nyandarua counterpart, Methu Muhia, they are the youngest senators in the House at 31 years.
Essy is thus not only representing the interests of women but also youth.
"I somehow cut across those two areas and largely and gladly the citizens of Kenya, who really worked very hard to have this government in power," the Women for Ruto founder said at Parliament Buildings.
Her leadership qualities would start showing at Taranganya Primary School, where she was the bell ringer, an assignment that would see her observe time up to date. “If it is 8am, it is 8am,"she says.
Essy sat her KCPE exams in 2005, and passed to secure a slot at The Kenya High. Here, she was a class prefect and a house official.
She would unfortunately lose her father Henry Anyieni in 2006 an unfortunate event she says made her to be more responsible and independent.
Essy started engaging in politics at the Maasai Mara University, where she beat four men to become the first ever female vice-president of Student Organization of Maasai Mara University. She studied Information Science.
After graduating in 2015, Essy joined Safaricom as a customer service executive, a position she would hold until 2017, when she resigned to join national campaigns.
She was involved in the Uhuru re-election campaign, and in the last rally in Kisii, she sent the crowd into frenzy, catching the attention of then Deputy President William Ruto, the man who refers her as 'the lady with Kalonzo hairstyle'.
She got into the MCA nomination list but says she was shortchanged "even after my name appeared on the Gazette notice" and the nomination handed to another politician, Edmond Mokumi (Jubilee Party).
The nomination of Mokuni resulted in a legal battle as Essy filed a petition against the nomination, which she lost at the High Court. She didn't appeal further as she feared it was an exercise in futility.
After the 2017 polls, she was invited by Ruto to Harambee Annex, where she worked as assistant director Research, a position she held until February 2022.
"So in that process, the deputy president learnt about what had happened and because he didn't know my name, — he used to describe me as the lady with Kalonzo hairstyle — looked for my contact and gave me placement in his office. I was very happy to get that opportunity," Essy narrated.
Under John Chikati (now Tongaren MP), she was responsible for developing strategies to support the implementation of technical and vocational training institutions in line with the Jubilee agenda of equipping youths with technical skills.
After resigning in 2022, Essy says she was instrumental in the building and popularising of UDA party in Kisii region as well as in the command centre during the elections. She was also instrumental in the communications campaign, especially on social media.
"I attracted quite a number of followers who were affiliated with our end. And even for the ones who didn't subscribe to the Hustler Nation ideology, they appreciated my style of communication, and would say, yeah, we respect your choice of party," she said.
She also founded Women for Ruto, which she used to mobilize for the Kenya Kwanza campaign.
She describes her desire to get involved in politics as inborn. She would follow her father as her led political mobilization efforts in the village when she was a young girl.
"I have this drive to create an impact in any space I am in through my little contributions. All these positions I was given in school were out of the teachers noticing what I was doing. I've always been noticed. And for me, it is about service to the people," she said.
Asked how easy or hard was it to transition from student to national politics, she says, "Very easy, in deed".
"First of all, as a student leader you are working with people who are now out here. I had also already identified my niche, which had to build on after leaving. At the university, we worked closely with political leaders, who supported our programmes. Hon Soipan, for instance, supported my programmes for women in school.
She criticizes the current student delegation system of university politics, noting it is not vibrant and representative as the one-man one-vote system.
The senator also spoke about issues of interest among them devolution, health, women and youth in leadership
You are serving in the Health and Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations committees. Let's start with health. What would you like to contribute in this area?
For the short time I've been here, I have had the opportunity to deal with negligence cases at Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital, and the case of the baby [Travis Maina] with a fork jembe lodged in his head at Kenyatta National Hospital.
This shows how our health system has many issues. But I would want services to be closer to the people. When services are closer to the people, it's easier to deal with them down there. Like the baby Travis case, they initially went to Kiambu where they were not able to handle it and it was referred to KNH.
There is also need for better digitization of health records and I can help in this with my background in information sciences. I have qualification on records management and I know how important it is to keep records of any nature.
When you keep digitizing your records, you're able to track performance, patient history and distribution of drugs dispensaries. It will also help reduce misdiagnosis, as different doctors will have access a patient's health history.
We also have cases of mental health that we are seeing now. People are generally frustrated and the frustrations are coming in now. It is only that the media is highlighting those frustrations more and their effects. That's an area I want to take up as a challenge, dig into it and look at what can be done.
On devolution?
The Senate exists to make devolution work and not just for the Senate. This country has to ensure devolution works because like I said, the essence of devolution was to get services closer to the ordinary people, who are not able to access some of the services that are accessible to small privileged number.
On the relationship between governors and MCAs, I look at it as people not understanding their roles. When you look at the PMF [The Public Finance Management] Act, it speaks clearly on some of those roles and responsibilities.
The county assembly has a very huge mandate of deciding who becomes the county executive. But then you hear MCAs saying they are not able to summon the CEC yet they vetted him/her.
I think these people have not performed as to what they're meant to be doing. If MCAs don't understand they have that power, how would you help them?
On the other hand, I think governors might not understand but they clearly need to work with these country assemblies in approving their budget, as they are very critical. It is the MCAs who legislate, pass those activities and the executive implements.
These two arms are serving the ordinary people and when you're disagreeing, don't you see you are disadvantaging the people who put you in those positions? Misunderstanding of roles and responsibilities of the executive and the county assemblies is one big issue I have observed.
It shouldn't also be so easy to impeach a governor than it is to employ a teacher and or an MCA. And so I think orientation for this, too, is a very critical thing that we need to have so that people understand the mandate they have. Some of those issues can be settled before they even get to the Senate.
What would you say about journey of gender parity in Kenyan politics?
I'm a woman and young person at the same time. But being on this platform, I normally share with a few of my friends that I'm not actually on this platform through the gender card.
I'm a leader in the first place and it is because of leadership qualities that I possess that I'am now in this place. The best way of dealing with this, don't go out there fighting and saying it's because I'm a woman. The moment you start using that, it's very difficult for you to convince people they will always use that one against you.
All of us are honorable members in this House. So the moment you start by using the gender card, you are already wounded before you begin.
You see, we are not competing because we are women, not because we are youth, we are competing because we have leadership and service to offer to this country.
But that having been said, we face challenges because some of these spaces have been dominated by people with a financial muscle and veterans and surely maybe hadn't UDA given me this chance, I would never seen the corridors of Parliament.
I say I'm a true example of the bottom up, the mantra. I didn't know anyone like William Ruto. I met him in those political rallies.
Timing is very important. When the timing is right, then things happen. So for young women and young people, I still do not want to say we are weak because we have to co-exist with men. They're part of our existence and like where I come from, many of them supported me.
So that's a plus when you look at it that way.
We now have a good number of women who are elected MPs and that's the direction we want to go. We've made great strides in regards to gender parity.
I read in history that in this House, there was a time women were not allowed to enter with their handbags until they one day protested.
We have women in positions of decision-making and we end up having a very balanced decision. And for those of us who have been given those chances of which someone like me is a beneficiary, I am really hoping to use the platforms as a stepping-stone to elective politics.
The Senate is compliant, with the National Assembly still pending. So for me, I think we are step in the right direction.
The counties are struggling with pending bills, wastage and corruption. What should be done to curb this?
First of all, pending bills are as a result of delayed national government disbursements. The National Treasury should be disbursing finances on time.
The other issue is counties going beyond their means and promising to pay, even committing before knowing what they have. Sometimes they use their approximation of their own sources of revenue, which is often not enough. And when you're not able to pay, that becomes a pending bill.
I think we need to really separate issues because if governors were able to commit to projects with resources, the issue wouldn't be there.
We had a report the counties are collecting less than now-defunct councils were collecting. We are doing badly and that tells you we are in these cases of large pending bills because of that, that one is the major one.
Then, at what point does someone become a ghost worker? That is an economic crime.
If the human resource was able to vet, who is doing, what and the PFM Act pronounces itself on responsibilities and the staff integration schemes at the counties, and then we talk about ghost workers, then someone should be in jail.
I think some of these things are jokes taken too far and we've been entertaining them for quite a while.