KABATESI: Western women leaders sabotaged their kind, favoured godfathers

I put aside the programme with a sigh of relief: this is a professionally organised conference.

A lot of thought was evident in the choice of topics and specialist resource persons. This is configured into a clear objective to develop a strategic mechanism. Complying with traditional social engineering, the process would be led by elite sisters.

To avoid political infiltration, diversion and hijacking of the agenda, profiled participants would pay for their cost of attendance. No monkey politics would be entertained. No politicos would flood the meeting with the Hoi Polloi. Their time will come.

A first in avoiding flirting with political patronage at the inception of a process, these mothers had staked ownership of their destiny.

Finally, I thought, the women from my lineage had got it right and bested where their fractious male folk have failed. This conference will set tongues wagging and replicate in Kenya.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In Kakamega last Saturday was staged the inaugural Western Region Women Conference on economic and political empowerment agenda. But this altruism was torpedoed at the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology venue.

The fault line started before thousands of women from across the country trooped to the venue. It slipped when the often-insecure politician sisters were invited into planning.

Some ‘guest’ invitees didn’t join in devotion to the set cause but as agents of their male godfathers. Hidden in their armpit handbags was the instrument of sabotage - money.

An act of good faith was convoluted. Instead of a controlled number of participants that would give meaning to a conference, the organisers gave in to a free-for-all online registration, an opportunity the politicos seized on with glee.

Registration became a melee of huge batches of paid-for-women participants. A conference morphed into a rally given the galloping numbers, among them professional hecklers. Offered a free hand, the political sisters took advantage to execute a sabotage assignment.

Alarmed, some organisers proposed postponement to re-evaluate the veracity of the gathering given the shift in the profile of participants and numbers. They were overruled, and a WhatsApp wall was pulled down to tame dissent.

To keep the conference on an even keel in talking strategy, the guest speaker would be Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, wearing a government helmet, for good reason.

Other than his sobering presence, he’s a bird’s eye view of a government in his unique coordination and supervision of government ministries, departments and agencies' role. Being at the fulcrum of government decision-making, he would bring crucial insights to bear on the conference’s agenda and strategy to confer government partnership.

For good measure, he was assigned an intricate topic, “Enabling Greater Gender Inclusiveness in Governance Institutions and Processes”, intended to entice government commitment. He prepared well for the takeaways and I vouch that Western Kenya and Kenya women are the losers for missing the presentation when choreographed disruption descended.

When it was time, the sabotage script was executed seamlessly. A harmless remark that William Ruto was the legitimate President by Malava MP Malulu Injendi was the spark that ignited programmed hecklers to muzzle the chopper arrival of an Azimio brigade.

As if to give credence to the enemy from within, agent provocateurs in the event organising committee led by Kakamega Woman Representative Elsie Muhando took control of protocol, inviting the gatecrashers to the podium.

Veering from the dictum of ‘no politics’, what had been billed as a conference to deliberate strategy to empower the women of Western Kenya became a shouting match between contending Kenya Kwanza and Azimio women adherents.

A meditative Mudavadi watched calmly as the exchange by ODM attack dogs played out. He must have been thinking, ‘Who cursed us?’

After the baying was over, he would not make his presentation or play to the gallery. Instead, he was blunt. He called on stage a 25-year-old Cynthia Baraza, a mother of three, forced into early motherhood at age 13.  

“I was only 13 years when my mother passed on. I had to go to Nairobi to look for a job as a house help. I had my firstborn at 13, and got two other children,” narrated Cynthia, a victim of child early pregnancies.

“This is not a story to celebrate,” Mudavadi blasted out. “This is an eye-opener to society. Children shouldn’t be having children! When we discuss how to empower the women of Kenya, this is a story that should ring in our minds,” he said, as he pledged to pay Cynthia’s college tuition fees in full. He had answered the journeymen before making a radical proposal.

“To uplift the status of our women, we might require an equivalent of the USA The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This is designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labour market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy. 

"We must do the same for Kenya women. I believe we can do it if we read from the same page that reads 'When the going gets tough, as it is now, we must toughen up on policy regarding the vulnerable',” the Prime CS said. 

This begs question: Is there conscience in a woman leader who denies her kind progress at the behest of her rascal party leader?

Of what value to the agenda of the meeting were nomadic statements about the high cost of living? Wasn’t the conference — on the economic empowerment of the woman — the best platform for charting long-term deterrence to hard economic times?

Unfortunately, a structured programme was thrown asunder in favour of a detour of journeymen en route to another worthless ventilation meeting. But the tough will get going. Those who planned the derailment of the conference of and for women are women leaders.

For professional women, the die is cast; don’t babysit your sister politicos. They didn’t embarrass Mudavadi. Mudavadi was ashamed of them for selling out.

Kibisu Kabatesi is Mudavadi's private secretary