To honour Asiyo, women leaders must insist on decorum, dignity

Mama Phoebe Asiyo will be given a state burial, as she ought to. The iconic Kenyan matriarch passed on two weeks ago, in the United States. She goes down in history as a phenomenal personality who brought admiration and decorum to leadership.  

She will be remembered most for her quest for affirmative action, and contribution to women’s rights as human rights, in Kenya and beyond. Yet, can she really be boxed in that corner? Asiyo was so much more, in her colourful career. She lived for others, and taught us to live for others, too.   

The girl born in Gendia Mission Hospital in Kendu Bay in 1932, dreamt of becoming a nurse. Speaking to me in a series of interviews in 2015, the world-class leader who leaves behind indelible footprints in the sands of time, talked of her frustrated career dream.  “I always wanted to be a nurse,” she said, “I saw missionary nurses in white apparel at Gendia. I thought they were angels. I longed to be like them. When I reflect on that innocent longing, and the path that my life took, I see the hidden secrets of life. I see God. The supernatural being who guides us on least trodden paths.”    

Before her election to Parliament in 1979, Mama Phoebe had been many things to many people. Her dream of a nursing career came to a sudden end when, in 1946, it was decided for her that she should instead become a teacher. She trained in Kangaru in Embu, after leaving Kamagambo Girls Secondary School in her native Nyanza. On successful completion in 1949, she was posted to Pumwani School, in Nairobi.

It would be a short stint that ended with the Evelyn Baring State of Emergency in 1952. The Municipal Council of Nairobi needed a social worker, to rescue children rendered destitute in the greater Nairobi, as a factor of the emergency activities. She came face to face with wasted lives, broken homes and despair. She set out to repair lives and restore hope.  

Her tour of duty in the Kenya Prisons opened her eyes up to the flawed justice system. The innocent were often punished, while the guilty went free. The case of a woman who “confessed” to killing her husband to save her son, who was the real culprit, was unnerving. So, too, was the practice of jailing underage kids instead of rehabilitating them. She pioneered reforming juvenile offenders in borstal institutions, through mentorship and training in income generating skills. 

But it is certainly in the women rights movement that she will most be remembered. What lessons does she leave behind for women leaders? In 1979, Asiyo was the only woman elected to Parliament. And even then, the men wanted her out, in preference to David Okiki Amayo, a systems man. The High Court nullified her election in August 1980. She was subjected to a by-election, in which she beat Amayo with an even wider margin. She went on to be re-elected in the 1983 snap election, but was rigged out in the infamous mlolongo election of 1988. Her final tenure was in 1992–1997.  It was a tough political landscape, full of insolence, violence, intimidation and innuendo. But she survived. Her Affirmative Action Bill of October 1997 was a watershed for inclusivity. Although men conspired to defeat it, it was the curtain raiser to the women’s numbers in Parliament today, even as they remain deficient.

Through a career that spanned leadership in Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organisation, teaching, the Nairobi Municipal Council, Kenya Prisons, Parliament, and a diplomatic stint in the United Nations, Asiyo championed women’s rights as human rights.  

In the end, society as a whole has benefitted from her energies. Even as the numbers of women remain miserably low in places where critical decisions are made, her efforts were not in vain. Present and future generations owe so much to this amazing fallen matriarch. Hers was a self-sacrificing journey of faith and courage.  

As we celebrate her exemplary life, women political leaders will do well to rethink disturbing emerging trends. Women in the political landscape are being turned into cheap sex objects. They are physically paraded in salacious displays. The dominant feared male displays them like cows at an auction in Lubao market. Shockingly, some seem to cherish this demeaning obscenity. That was not what Asiyo wanted more female numbers for. Our women leaders must embrace dignity, honour and decorum like Asiyo did. They must refuse to be turned into cheap sex objects and playthings.

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke