Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo and Chief of General Staff Samson Mwathethe receive bodies of KDF soldiers killed in an attack by Al-Shabaab in Somalia. She reinvented the phrase “soft power” when receiving soldiers injured or killed. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The former law student at the University of Kent in the UK was among the youngest woman to start a law firm in Kenya, Omamo and Omamo Advocates, when she was in her early 20s.
But she burst into the limelight in 1999 when she announced her candidature for the Law Society of Kenya chairperson.
She was also the first Kenyan woman delegate to Unesco.
Because generals oversee most military operations, pundits expected Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Awuor Omamo’s job to be ceremonial and largely colourless.
It did not help that she was the first female defence boss and a soft-spoken diplomat in a ministry dominated by men with guns.
