Governor Susan Kihika’s hypocrisy

KENYA’s Nakuru County governor, Susan Kihika has been in the news lately, and not exactly for the right reasons. Governor Kihika, 51, recently returned from the United States with her husband, Sam Mburu, where the couple welcomed a set of twins. But it is not the good news of the additions to her family that thrust Governor Kihika in the eye of the storm. Rather, it was the remarks she made at the Madaraka Day celebrations held at the Heroes Technical Vocational College in Bahati Sub-County. Stung perhaps by public criticism of her decision to have her babies outside the country, Governor Kihika responded: “Women, you know our job (having babies). Just because I am the governor, does it mean I can’t have babies? Also, you know I am the governor. All doctors and nurses are under me. Did you really want me to lay on a table with the same doctors helping me deliver?”

 So far as we know, there is no suggestion that the couple embarked on the US trip with public funds. Ms. Kikiha is also right that nothing stops a woman (of childbearing age) from carrying out her official responsibilities. Pregnancy is not a disease, and we have seen enough examples from across the world to come to the conclusion that the rigours of pregnancy are not a deterrent to judicious decision-making. Where Governor Kihika gets it all wrong is in her suggestion that as governor, she cannot be exposed to the indignity of “all doctors and nurses under her” being present when she is giving birth. If that is the case, then no female governor will ever consent to give birth before her subordinates because doing so, in Kihika’s thinking, automatically lowers her in their esteem. To the best of our knowledge (there are mothers on newspaper editorial boards, including that of the Nigerian Tribune), the most important consideration for prospective mothers is safety; theirs and their babies’. The idea that a woman about to go through labour (never has a word been more apt) will be more worried about the presence of her apparent subordinates is beyond absurd.

The truth of the matter is that Governor Kihika was inventing an excuse for something much more straightforward: her decision to have her twins abroad had nothing to do with anxiety about being exposed before subordinates and everything to do with the state of the country’s health sector. Governor Kihika was merely exercising prudence by refusing to take her chance in a country with a maternal mortality rate of 362 deaths per 100,000 live births compared with the United States with 18.6 deaths per 100,000. If being exposed before her subordinates was the problem, why did the governor not simply go to a hospital in any of Kenya’s five neighbouring countries?

Governor Kihika concluded her infamous remarks with a promise to build a maternity facility to enable more women to “enjoy services like the ones I did.” She has been in office since August 2022. Did it just occur to her after visiting the United States that her county needed world-class maternal facilities? Her disdain for her subordinates, her arrogance, and utter lack of confidence in the healthcare system over which she presides cannot escape mention. Clearly, she lacks confidence in the capacity, proficiency and competence of Nakuru doctors, nurses and hospitals, yet ordinary citizens have no option but to use their services. Her display of superiority complex is egregious and unexpected of the Number One citizen of a state. She ought to lead by example, and to stoke public confidence in the system she sought and received the mandate of the people to manage and improve upon.  Her action amounts to a repudiation of the system.

Governor Kihika epitomises the hypocrisy of African leaders who fiercely denounce Western imperialism, yet put their fate in the hands of Western doctors, send their children to schools in Western countries, and maintain large bank accounts and real estate portfolios there.

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