In Kenya’s new government, Minister of Health Charity Ngilu is regarded as a powerful player and a role model for a younger generation of female politicians.
In 1992, she surprised many people when she rose from obscurity to unseat former Cabinet Minister George Ndotto as member of Parliament for the Kitui Central district. In Parliament, she continued to make waves, especially when she struck out at the vice-ridden Moi regime, telling reporters, “You cannot touch or take anybody to court over corruption when you yourself are corrupt.”
When Ngilu announced in 1997 that she intended to run for Kenya’s presidency, excitement rippled across the country. As the first woman presidential candidate in sub-Saharan Africa, Ngilu was a trailblazer on a continent known for its corrupt “Big Men.”
Though she became fourth and didn’t win the top job in 1997, Ngilu left her mark on the political landscape. In 2002, when opponents of President Daniel arap Moi joined forces as the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), she became known as “Mama Rainbow.” Quick to recognize her contributions to the party after he won the presidency, NARC leader Mwai Kibaki made her one of the key members of his first Cabinet.
However,as the chairperson of NARC she was later left stranded after the Liberal Democratic Party left the coalition after the defeat of the Government-sponsored draft constitution, while most of the remaining NARC members founded the new Narc-Kenya party, though NARC is still officially the ruling party. She has been viewed as a flip flopper who could not decide whether she was in the government between 2003 and 2007 or against the government.
On July 31, 2007, Ngilu took Ann Njogu, a protester, to a hospital after Njogu had allegedly been beaten by police. Ngilu was then accused of helping Njogu escape the police, and she was arrested on August 2 before being released on bail. She reported to the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department on August 3 as she was ordered, but would not leave her car, saying that she should either be charged or released. Later on the same day the Nairobi High Court ruled that Ngilu's arrest was illegal, and she was allowed to leave. According to Ngilu's lawyer, she was not aiding an escape and Njogu was returned to the police by the hospital a day after she was taken there.
On October 5, 2007, Ngilu announced her support for the Orange Democratic Movement and its presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, in the December 2007 general election; she has compared Odinga to Nelson Mandela. She initially said that she was remaining in the government, despite backing Kibaki's main rival. However, her dismissal from the government by Kibaki was announced on October 6.
Ngilu was re-elected to her seat from Kitui Central in the December 2007 parliamentary election. Kibaki won the presidential election according to official results, but this was disputed by the ODM, and a violent crisis developed. The crisis was eventually resolved with a power-sharing agreement, and in the grand coalition Cabinet named on April 13, 2008 and sworn in on April 17, Ngilu was appointed as Minister of Water and Irrigation.
Charity Kaluki Ngilu was born in Mbooni, Makueni District in 1952. She was educated at Alliance Girls High School, then worked as a secretary for Central Bank of Kenya, before becoming an entrepreneur. She acted as a director of a plastics extrusion factory. is a Kenyan politician. She was the ninth of 13 children born to poor parents in rural Kenya, and before entering public life worked as a secretary, a bank manager, and an entrepreneur, opening businesses as diverse as a bakery and a plastics factory. She also became a wife and mother of three.Her husband passed on in 2006 while undergoing treatment in South Africa.
Click the link below to watch Ngilu's video clip
ReferenceWikipedia.com
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