Sharp or loose tongue, you cannot just ignore Gathoni

Several years ago, Kiambu Woman Representative Gathoni wa Muchomba accompanied her limping mother to a dispensary in Komothai, Kiambu County.

Blood was gushing from her mother’s severed toe, and they wanted doctors to urgently attend to her.

“I injured it while pruning in a coffee plantation,” her mother told the medics.

Gathoni was stunned.

“No. My father cut her toe. It is not from pruning coffee. They were fighting!” she interjected.

Doctors demanded that they go to the police. Her mother was disappointed. She, at least at that time, wanted nobody to know she there were domestic squabbles.

Her mother pinched her and said: “Your long mouth will one day land you in big trouble!”

Little did she know that her ‘long mouth’; that which her mother had constantly warned her about, would be a blessing and curse as she edged into adulthood.

While in college, she became a radio presenter. Her sharp tongue, quick wit and sense of humour made her a darling of the airwaves. As a presenter of Kameme and later Inooro FM, she commanded a huge following. Media dubbed her ‘queen of vernacular radio’. She silenced even the most vocal politicians in her combative breakfast show.

“Leaders from Central and beyond begged to be featured because they knew if Gathoni talks, people listen,” she says.

Dated a politician

In 2007, she ditched the microphone for politics. She returned to Maragwa where she was brought up after her mother took up a job as a home maker after fleeing from her abusive marriage in Kiambu.

Her entry into ‘siasa’ was a flop. Popular as she was, she was felled by Elias Mbau.

She attempted a comeback in radio as a media owner – setting up Bahasha FM, a station that folded soon after its launch.

“There was a lot of shrewdness in accessing frequencies. I made losses and decided to quit,” she says.

Her close friends however trace her downfall to an affair gone awry.

Reports of her involvement with a prominent and married politician abound. People close to her claim they set up the radio project at the peak of their relationship.

Their love was the talk of town. They threw caution to the wind, always showing up at functions together, hands interlocked. They were often spotted in the studios of the budding radio station, way past programming time. Then the spark fizzled out.

“When she stopped spending time with the man, she closed the radio station soon after,” says a user on her social media pages.

Gathoni admits that she dated a politician for seven years. She says their relationship was in public domain but halted when she realised they were ‘headed nowhere.’ She clarifies that she was with the politician before she met her husband Robert Mbugua, with whom they have two children.

“My husband knows my past. We started on a clean slate and he is now my biggest supporter,” she says.

And what about polygamy, would she allow her husband to follow suit? “My husband can marry another wife if he wants,” she says.

Her unfiltered remarks have always gotten her backlash. Barely a month after being elected, she was bashed for saying MPs need better pay. There were calls to impeach her. She was nicknamed “Gathoni wa Mushahara” to depict the greed voters felt she had demonstrated.

She quickly apologised and Kiambu residents forgave her. Then came her recent declaration on polygamy.