By Wahome Thuku
THIS November, I mark 15 years since I lost my Mother. She died in 2005 aged 75. Today she would be 90 years, just 3 years older than the Very First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta who was born on 24th June 1933.
The first time I met Mama Ngina was at the Mama Ngina Children’s Home in Nairobi when she had visited to celebrate Christmas with the destitute children many years ago. The last time I saw her as July 2017 when she visited our church in Kitengela ahead of the general elections.
I have friends who work in very close circles with her and they tell me that Mama Ngina is this lady who you pass in the corridors totally unnoticed. Even in her own businesses, she behaves like the mother she is, to the workers.
Another friend tells me that during the campaigns in Gatundu Mama Ngina would stop in small campaign rallies to listen to candidates. And she would stand at the far back, to avoid attracting attention. Well those are stories.
The point is this, you would have to be a juvenile or a total novice to draw Mama Ngina into your stupid political rhetoric. I know all Mothers must be respected but there are those mothers who are politicians or political animals who are always ready and willing to go into the mud with any pig.
Mama Ngina is a totally different person. She never gives out her opinion, she doesn’t involve herself. One time I heard her on radio saying that when her husband died he never left her with any money. That she put all her mind and time into raising her children. Even that interview itself was very rare.
So when you insult Mama Ngina, you touch the heart of the Kikuyu nation and the whole nation and it doesn’t take long for you to realize it..
You may insult Uhuru Kenyatta he is a politician and he may pick up the fight with you. When you draw in Mama Ngina, it become’s a different matter.
Her demeanor, character and reservation fights for her. The moment you pull her name into a dirty political debate, you realize its only a matter of time before you find yourself having to apologize. Because those like me who call her mother, even for the fact of being my mother’s age mate, wont forgive you easily.
