Tiaty MP Asman Kamama denies neglecting his kids

A 36-year-old woman claims Baringo East Constituency legislator Asman Kamama has shunned parental responsibility for the two children she got with him.

“Even right now, his son is not in school. Since he is idle, he has strayed and joined a gang. I am afraid for him,” says Norah Mwongeli Wambua.

Kamama however dismissed the claims as baseless rumours and admitted that although Mwongeli was his girlfriend when he was young, they never had any child.

“In my community, men are polygamous, so I wouldn’t deny her if she has my children. If the children were indeed mine, I would take them in as family. I will also have a DNA test to put a stop to these baseless rumours once and for all,” an angry Kamama told The Nairobian.

Mwongeli claims she met Kamama in 1996 when he was a District Officer in Athi River.

“I had gone to the DO’s office and when Asman saw me, he asked me to be his girlfriend,” says Mwongeli.

After two days, the then 18-year-old Mwongeli gave in to his advances and for the next two years, she was Kamama’s mistress.

“I knew he was married and I didn’t want to chase him around. I loved and respected him because he also took good care of me. He was then posted to Hola, then Murang’a, but we remained close, and I would visit him occasionally at his new work station,” Mwongeli recalls.

After two years, Mwongeli got pregnant and was relieved when Kamama, who holds a diploma in Agricultural Education from Egerton College, didn’t disown the baby.

“He paid the hospital bill and helped me name the baby girl,” she says, adding that she also got a job with Kamama’s support and moved out of her mother’s house. She was now 20 and had a loving, older boyfriend who took care of her and the baby.

“In 2001, he was the Kangema DO and I got pregnant after visiting him. He was happy with the news and promised to take care of me,” she recalls. It was a baby boy.

“Things changed when Kamama joined politics in 2002. Providing for us became a problem. I had to plead and keep reminding him to send money for upkeep,” says Mwongeli.

The children’s birth certificates, whose authenticity we could not verify, indicate that Asman Kamama is their father.

Hon Kamama, also chairman of the powerful House committee on national security, was posted as a deputy headteacher at Chemolingot Secondary School immediately after college, a post he left after one year to join the Office of the President as a District Officer III. He rose through the ranks and by 2001, he was District Officer I when he quit the civil service and joined politics.

“I never asked him for money when I was employed. I have been supporting my children on my own with the occasional help from my family. Right now, I have just undergone surgery and I can’t do the mjengo work I used to do. The money he sent, I paid school fees for our eldest daughter. My younger son is now just at home. He hasn’t gone to school since first term,” Mwongeli narrates.

What frightens her is that her 13-year-old son is now keeping bad company.

“Last week, the boy and his friends stole scrap metal from a construction site. They were caught and police called. My family had to raise Sh30, 000 to pay the owner of the construction site. I was angry and punished him. ‘But mum, what am I to do if I am hungry, and I am not even going to school?’ he asked me, and that moved me to tears,” adds Mwongeli, saying she called Kamama immediately after.

“He never picked my calls,” she says disclosing that she had been locked out of her house that morning because of rent arrears.

“All I have always wanted is for him to take his children, so that I remain single. Now, I can’t get married with the two children. But If I get a job, I can take care of my children.

“I know Kamama is married, but I didn’t know he would one day abandon us like this. I just want him to help me get a job, and I will never bother him again,” says Mwongeli, who claims that she’s never known any man in her life besides Kamama.

We, however, spoke to a man who revealed he was married to her for five years.