Kuna kaukweli (there is an iota of truth): A phrase used to let the cat out of the bag since 22 BC. Its latest high-profile user is Sabina Chege, the Murang’a woman representative.
Example, as used by Ms Chege on Thursday: “Nimesikia wengine wakisema hapa tuliwaibia. Kuna kaukweli kidogo (I’ve heard others say we stole [votes]. There is an iota of truth).”
Chege Maitu Sabina Wanjiru: A short-haired former actress and radio queen, who has been making radioactive political declarations since 2013.
Out of context: A phrase politicians who have put their feet in their mouths use to distance themselves from controversial facts they have accidentally revealed since 2022 BC. For example, Ms Chege told NTV on Friday that her remarks about vote stealing were taken — you guessed it right — out of context.
With the definitions out of the way, the radioactivity of Ms Chege’s tongue is yet again grabbing headlines. Remember 2016 when she said castration should be the punishment for rapists? Or that time in 2018 when she told someone to “ask their mother” the question they had posed to her? That is Sabina Chege for you.
Her latest remarks about vote rigging in the 2017 General Election drew sharp remarks, notably from Deputy President William Ruto.
“I want to ask you people of Nakuru, did we steal anyone’s vote?” he asked at a rally on Friday.
“I was the one in charge of votes in Jubilee. There is not a single vote that Uhuru Kenyatta stole.”
Besides Dr Ruto’s wrath, Ms Chege has also earned herself a date with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission on the day after Valentine’s, as the electoral agency believes she flouted the electoral code of conduct.
Trained as a teacher at the University of Nairobi (UoN), Ms Chege found mass media more appealing than the chalk. While she was a UoN student, she was also a presenter at vernacular station Kameme . Her last assignment before politics was programmes controller at Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, where she was also a presenter at Coro FM .
She was also one of the actors in Tausi, the TV show that used to air on KBC TV , where she played Rehema. She told NTV in 2019 that she reluctantly joined politics. But now, she has taken it like a fish in water and is now firmly in the arena where, like in film, sometimes people play roles because some scriptwriter has wanted them to play them.
She has been a backer of Deputy President William Ruto when the script wanted her to (in June 2016, she declared that she would be his running mate in 2022), and a critic when required to do the contrary, like she quipped in Vihiga: “Wanafikiria wao ndio wajanja (They think they are the smart ones).”
By June 2019, she was donning colours of “Embrace”, a women politicians’ movement that was at some point trying to be the middle ground as the ruling Jubilee Party split into Kieleweke and Tangatanga. But she later fused with the Kieleweke side as others chose to go Dr Ruto’s way.
Chairing the National Assembly Health committee, Ms Chege has said in a previous interview that President Uhuru Kenyatta approved of her work in the 11th Parliament where she chaired the Committee on Education, Research and Technology.
But with her latest remarks, which suggest that Mr Kenyatta ascended to office by playing dirty with votes, might she have changed the frequency of her “radio” connection to State House?
