By Machua Koinange

Janet Teiya, 33, lost her ability to walk at five years old after a bout with polio. 

Reduced to crawling, her father gave up on the disabled girl.

With the help of social worker Grace King’atua, she ended up at AIC Kajiado childcare center. “I had to intervene and plead with her parents to let me take to her to school and I had to use the goodwill of area chief Ole Sayo of Saikeri to earn their trust,” she says recalling the event of over two decades ago. Grace had heard about Janet’s plight in the course of her work. “The school had a disabled center where she could get specialised help.” 

After two years of treatment and learning to walk on crutches, her father realised she was an amazing girl who needed him back in her life. The former student of Enoomatasiani Secondary School who excelled in Maths, English and GHC is now a nominated MP. Her journey has taken her from a pariah in her home, a children’s home, a stint trying to be an accountant, an adult literacy teacher to the August House.

“I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be in Parliament. It’s completely amazing,” she says.

Janet was born in 1980 in Ilkilorit in Kajiado County. Her father had four wives. Her mother had seven children. Polio attack left her at the mercy of crutches to move around and she had to find a delicate balance holding two crutches and growing up among normal children.

Janet took up accountancy classes between 2000 and 2002. However, she was referred in one of her papers, meaning she had to retake the course. Her father could not afford the fees.

Shattered and now confined to staying at home, she spent the next two years trying to figure what she wanted to do with her life.

She went into community service by teaching adults. For Janet, there was an enormous sense of personal satisfaction in being involved with a community that had watched her grow up and supported her. She stayed at it for the next five years until something dramatic happened.

In October 2012, her brother Dennis Teiya asked her to submit her name, date of birth and ID number for an opportunity. He was economic with the details but Janet trusted him enough to provide the information.

What she did not know is that the then Kajiado North MP Moses Ole Sakuda had a conversation in September 2012 with the then Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja about nominating a member of a marginalised community as an MP.  Sakuda was tasked with presenting three names to the party. He went around his community in Kajiado County seeking names. Three names were proposed to him— Two men who were blind and a disabled woman.

The woman was Janet Teiyaa but Sakuda had never met her. Says he: “I knew she had attended AIC Kajiado School, that she taught adult education, was disabled and had been rejected by her father as a child because of her disability.”

“In the Maasai community,” Sakuda says,” One was treated as a pariah for being blind, disabled and a woman. I felt it was time to change the community’s attitude. The majority of my voters in five wards were women. Women needed to be empowered.”

Janet’s story had resonated with the MP, but now he had done his duty by submitting three names. Picking the one name from the list lay with the party. It was out of Sakuda’s hands.

Janet forgot she had submitted her information and proceeded to take part in the March 4, 2013 elections. Her life began to change dramatically and it happened in trickles. First, she lives near a small shopping center called Saikeri. The town has market day on Tuesday and when Janet is not conducting adult classes, she takes time to attend the market.

On March 20, the list of nominated MPs was gazetted by the IEBC. Six days later her brother Julius Teiyaa attended market day. He called Janet excitedly.

“You know what? We are discussing you in Saikeri.”

Jane was baffled.” For what?”

“I have a gazette notice and your name was picked for MP.”

Janet was shocked. Could it be? There was a chance it could be another Janet Teiyaa out there or it could be a sick joke. Janet was convinced it could not be her.

It was now that Sakuda offered