By Priscilla Nyokabi - Senator Candidate, Nyeri County

The nomination of Hon. Martha Karua as the running mate to H.E. Raila Amolo Odinga, the Azimio Presidential Candidate is the best news that has come to the women of Kenya in a long time.

The other high point for the women was the passage and inauguration of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. It is truly a new dawn for the women of Kenya with the realistic chance of serving in the office of the Deputy President for the first time since independence. A heartbeat away from the President, hallelujah! Sisters say Amen!

A Baba-Martha Presidential Ticket has reasonable chances of success in the coming election. Baba, our Mandela will guarantee a smooth and stable transition from the 4th President to the 5th one.

Baba is our Joe Biden who will take over leadership after the Covid Pandemic that has negatively affected the economy. With Baba as our Joe Biden, he needs to find our equivalent of Kamala Harris. A seasoned woman political leader with a record of accomplishments.

This is Hon. Martha Karua who previously served in Parliament, Cabinet and had a stint in the Judiciary as a Magistrate. Martha has a very impressive resume and will offer Baba the necessary support to win the Presidency. Our Nation is at risk of capture by corruption cartels.

The best anti-dote for this is to get a well-known anti-corruption crusader in top leadership. Martha ticks so many boxes; she is a good leader of principle and the right values.

Martha is a human and women rights crusader and the best ambassador for gender equality to crush the ceiling. If we listen carefully, we can hear the glass shattering.

We are grateful to Baba Raila Amolo Odinga for being a destiny deliverer for the women of Kenya through the nomination of Martha Karua.

Baba delivered the destiny of the late President Mwai Kibaki when he declared Kibaki Tosha. In a similar way, it has taken the hand of Baba to say Martha Tosha and in that single act validate the leadership of women in our Country.

Kenya now joins the league of progressive nations in pursuit of gender equality in top leadership. Our neighbours Uganda and Tanzania have scaled this height before.

It is the nomination of H. E. Suluhu as running mate to the late President Magufuli that paved the way for the first woman President in Tanzania. Ethiopia has a woman President too. It has been sad for Kenya to lag behind its neighbours on gender equality indexes.

Even South Sudan has higher numbers of women in leadership than Kenya. We are happy that our day in Kenya has come, to have a running mate who is a woman.

We pray that Hon. Martha joins the ranks of many other great women in Africa and beyond. As a wise woman, she is advised to deal with the one or two points of weakness raised including the resignations. Of course as a Deputy President, she cannot resign. She should not contemplate it at all. 

Hon. Martha will bring expertise and energy to the Azimio campaigns and galvanize the women vote. The expectation is that this nomination should be the first step in getting many women elected in the August elections. We are very hopeful that the two-thirds gender rule will be achieved in the ballot.

This good example of the opposite gender rule applied at the Presidency should be replicated by Gubernatorial candidates. A male Governor candidate should nominate a female running mate and vice versa.

A lot of glass will go down as women move to occupy leadership spaces in numbers. The new dawn for women is not just during this pre-election period but more so after the elections.

We look forward to a Baba-Martha Presidency that is focused on the needs of the people especially healthcare, water, education, food security, housing and the whole gamut of social economic rights including job creation for the youth and safety nets for the vulnerable.

The 10-point agenda laid out by the Azimio Presidential candidate is a good starting point. It should be implemented faithfully led by a cabinet of both men and women. The future is indeed luminous as the youth say. For the young girls, the sky is the limit.

Oh what a good day to be a woman in Kenya! For those that have missed the ticket they should not leave the Azimio Coalition. Martha is a good team player who will quickly embrace her competitors to build a strong winning team.

The Kenya Kwanza Coalition is a gang of those with corruption cases who cannot be trusted to shepherd the national treasury.

Baba and Martha are a safe pair. In their hands, the country will prosper and every coin will be put to good use. The fight against corruption will receive a boost. To save the economy we must fight corruption.

To move Kenya forward we need to vote for Baba and Martha in August. A Baba-Martha ticket ushers in good leaders to steer the country from where H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta has left it, on a high note.