Kawira Mwangaza impeachment: Did the bishop save the governor?

Meru County Governor Kawira Mwangaza is consoled by her husband Murega Baichu after she survived her second impeachment by the Senate on November 8, 2023, at the Parliament buildings, in Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Kawira Mwangaza - two names loaded with optimism. Kawira - diligence and Mwangaza - illumination is a combination of leadership qualities that would delight any people. But diligence and illumination have suffered whirlwinds in Meru in the form of impeachments which nearly snuffed out Mwangaza's light and drained Kawira's diligence.

Governor Mwangaza's haters have sworn severally that gender has nothing to do with Meru woes. But this is not true, given the unacceptable attacks on Mwangaza's womanhood. The ouster agents have fuelled their tanks with female minimisation to fan a sorry narrative that Meru people erred in picking a female governor. There is no pride in chest thumping on how a woman should not lead. Any space that has no room for female leadership should count itself unfortunate. The thinking that women are lesser and that men are greater is no longer a premise in leadership. To keep attempting a return to that assumption is like pushing falling rain back to the clouds