Jael Mbogo: Meet the woman who challenged Mwai Kibaki in the 1969 Bahati MP race

It was the 1969 election season and the late former president Mwai Kibaki was then the Minister for Finance and a candidate for the Bahati Parliamentary seat.

It was his first stab at the August House and though he was a formidable contender, a young woman known as Jael Mbogo proved to be a major disruptor in the former president’s political ambitions in the capital Nairobi.

Mama Jael, as she is fondly known, has walked this earth for nine decades and watched Kenya grow up from a British Protectorate to the regional giant it is today.

Though she relies on her walking stick to get around these days, she remains unbowed.

Mama Jael is a rare example of a career politician who never actually held an elective post; her start in politics however began well before the 1969 election.

“I made sure I was nominated to be a councillor in Eastlands for me to represent the interests of the natives. There I had the opportunity to intervene every time my people were arrested. I would go to the then mayor Nathan Clark, a European, to plead for the release of my people,” she told Citizen TV.

Mbogo would hold the councillor seat until 1969 when the opportunity to vie for the Bahati Parliamentary seat arose; she was the only woman out of seven candidates.

“Each candidate was given 15 minutes to sell their agenda on the same platform but what I decided to do was not go on the woman platform. I made sure I had my issue-based manifesto when I did so,” she said.

One of the most notable contenders was the late former President Kibaki, then in charge of the Finance docket in Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s cabinet.

“One thing that I noted was that Kibaki was a gentleman. He respected me and all the other candidates. We didn’t have any quarrel or anything like that,” she reminisced.

“It was obvious that I had won even before voting. We campaigned, the votes were counted and he had very few votes. In three locations, Makongeni, Kaloleni and Mbotela, he didn’t get any votes.”

Though by the end of the count, Kibaki had won with 500 votes. It was a result Mama Jael was determined to contest in the courts until she was cautioned against it.

“The late Chief Justice Kitili Mwenda told me to drop the petition underscoring that I was still young. The important thing is to make sure that your head is on your neck because you are in no position to determine what lies ahead,” she said.

She tried once more in 1974 but lost. However, her love for Bahati Constituency never waned and saw her serve her people, in a pro-bono capacity.

She’s occupied several positions along her illustrious career as the second national Chairperson for Maendeleo ya Wanawake after Phoebe Asiyo.

She has also served as the Deputy General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches.

Mama Jael went on to say that she never held a grudge with Kibaki and made amends with the former Head of State in 2002.

“They organized an all women leadership conference at Silver Springs which I attended. The organisers sat me next to him. He looked a bit nervous but I made it clear that our past was behind us, instead we should focus on getting Moi out of State House,” she added.  

It was the ushering in of multipartyism that saw Kibaki become the third President of the Republic of Kenya.

“If you ask me, Kibaki was not meant to be in politics. He was a worker. He would say little and do much. It is a good attribute for a leader. He did a lot during his ten-year reign because of this,” said Mama Jael, noting that current leaders should emulate the former Head of State.